


ignominy

by Saul



Category: All For the Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe - Sentinels & Guides, Andrew Has Trust Issues, Fake Militaries and Funky Superhuman Science, Luckily Kevin Does Not, M/M, Multi, Neil Would Rather Not Be Here Now Or Ever, Protective or Possessive? Yes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-03
Updated: 2016-07-24
Packaged: 2018-07-19 20:06:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 83,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7375618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saul/pseuds/Saul
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>That sentinels - marvels of science, human beings enhanced to the edge of human perfection - fell apart without someone to focus on was, by every scientist's account, complete bollocks. That all his running went down the drain because Neil happened to match with one was, in his personal opinion, even more absurd. </p><p>Meanwhile, Evermore Laboratories continued to care not one bit about what was or wasn't possible, and weren't about to let a little matter like basic human rights stop them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A BEGINNING

**Author's Note:**

> for extras and updates, check [here](https://unkingly.tumblr.com/tagged/sentinel+au)!
> 
> ?? ??? kandreil doesn't have an ao3 tag? the heck??  
> my ot3-loving heart can't take that. in an effort to fill a sad gap as well as mess around with possessive tendencies & three poor losers stuck in a mean, military-esque, Moriyama-run system, I present to you: this fic.
> 
> there will be **nsfw** aspects of varying explicitness. all is consensual. 
> 
> cheers!

When they brought him in, he walked like a tiger chained: unbowed, unbroken, ferocity in his eyes and a deadly promise in the flash of white teeth. 

_Temporary,_ that look said. _This is temporary. One wrong step, and we’ll see who’s top of the food chain._

When they locked him in his room ( _solitary, as was fitting for a wild animal in human guise_ ), he spent the first hour pacing, running hands along cracks and digging fingers into unyielding corners. The second hour found much of the same, but a touch more frantic. The third broke his silence: he turned his eyes to where a camera watched out from out of reach and snarled, growled, cursed. He spit vitriol and promised hell. He was creative with his insults for someone so new. He was unbowed, unbroken, and absolutely out of his element.

For a day, they left him to cool off. Eventually he did, shoving himself in a corner atop the bare mattress in his room. A drain, a water tap, a mattress and a camera: those were the amenities for wild animals, and what they gave him. For a day, those and his thoughts were all to keep him company.

On the second day, he didn’t pace, curse or scream ( _he’d never screamed_ ). He watched the slot under the metal door, arms loose over drawn up knees. He moved only for the drain and water, and retreated quickly from either to continue his silent vigil on the door.

By the third day, he appeared more rabbit than tiger. He looked to the camera and asked, “Can you hear me?”

Through a grainy feed in the security room, one could see his throat work. His voice, when he spoke, was level, restrained, nervous, but still, untamed.

 _Temporary,_ he’d said with furious, terrified eyes. _This is temporary._ They wouldn’t forget that so soon. Their memories went farther than that: they remembered the boy’s father, and a promising offer dashed because of a foolish mother’s panic.

“I need food,” he told the camera. “You’re just going to let me starve? Talk about a waste in resources to bring me here.”

It wasn’t what they needed to hear. It wasn’t enough.

He waited in silence through the third day, his room and its lights unchanging. He paced, but mostly, he slept.

By the end of the forth, he slouched next to the water tap and didn’t, couldn’t, move. He slept or he stared at the walls. He had yet to throw a tantrum or scream or screech since his arrival, but they weren’t fooled. They’d done this before. 

He put a trembling hand to his face and, in the tone of someone making a concession, not someone begging, asked: “Please. I’m starving.”

It was not enough. They waited.

 _What’s taking so long?_ Another man, tall, broad-shouldered, the number on his cheek labeling him the second. His anxiety manifested in curt demands and an absolute lack of patience (a flaw he’d suffered before the panic). _Why can’t I see him?_

 _Be patient_ , a technician told him next to the water cooler. The man wasn’t allowed to see the tapes, screens or the one they’d brought in. Though he’d been the one to identify their run-away and pull in an investment they had waited thirteen years for, it would ruin the entire process if he made proper contact so soon. _A little longer. Just a little longer._

The man’s hands curled and his jaw gained a stubborn set, his nostrils flaring. The technician wondered if he could smell the run-away from here, but no, that was surely impossible. If the man _could_ hear him, she was positive no reinforced doors would keep them apart.

On the fifth day, the one curled on his side in the cell whispered, their mics straining to pick up the words, “ _Please._ Something. Anything. Do you want me to die?”

They didn’t. 

Moreover, it was pride beginning to break. A tiger sleeping no matter the creature that approached; a rabbit with a calm heart no matter what reached for it.

 _It’s a start,_ Tetsuji Moriyama told the technician. _Food, then lights. Another week, and have Day bring him to basic. I don’t want them separated for a second after Nathaniel leaves solitary._

Food: soup, an ounce of bread. After five days, he’d have to be worked back to anything heavier. He set upon the tray they slid in like a-- well, like a starving man. He didn’t throw any of it up, though it left him nauseous. That was fine; again, they’d done this before.

Light: from ten to five, in time with everyone else’s schedule, the fixtures above dimmed and the white walls greyed. The first time, he shoved his face into the mattress and, by the tension across narrow shoulders, came close to tears. 

Seven days, and he was back to pacing. Seven days, and the five before those was a not-so-distant memory. Left to his thoughts and nothing else, he made noise with finger snapping and knuckle-rapping against the walls, but still, he buried non-essential words and screams in his chest and refused to allow them out. It was an incredible show of willpower. It wouldn’t do him any favors. 

When the slot opened and a request for him to extend his wrists behind his back came, he duly obeyed. One man cuffed him, and one man told him they were going to where he’d be staying, and one man opened the door and began to lead him down a non-descript hallway full of doors just like his. He kept his eyes up but his head down; the only thing he said was, “Remember me now?”

His redder roots had begun to show, and he’d had no solution to save his brown contacts with. His voice was quiet, rusty from disuse.

Kevin spared him a glance, and then couldn’t seem to stop sparing him a glance. He looked like he wanted to grimace, but couldn’t quite manage it right. Maybe he would’ve - and had - felt remorse over prompting the Moriyamas to drag a stranger in off the street. But Nathaniel Wesninski was someone who should’ve been by his side for thirteen years, as promised by his father at the beginning stages for _Project Sentinel_. A civilian had no place being forced into their ranks, but a boy who wasn’t even legally alive hardly counted as an average citizen.

By Nathaniel’s testimony when they’d brought him in, it had been his mother’s plan. A child wasn’t responsible for his mother’s decisions, but he’d continued running even after her death-- which, also claimed by him, had happened a full year ago. Now he was twenty-three. The plea of ignorance based on innocence stretched only so far.

“You couldn’t hide forever,” Kevin finally said. Nathaniel reeked of encroaching illness, his heels dragging in a manner that couldn’t be accounted for by the cuffs. Without concentrating, he could hear the rapid beat of heart. Even before solitary, when Kevin had found him in a community center practicing Exy (three doors down from their top suspect for the recent homicide case), Nathaniel had been a bony, skittish thing, everything except his mind teetering on a precipice. He’d ran and fought like a wild animal when he’d caught sight of Kevin, but Kevin was, of course, faster and stronger. “It was impressive how long you managed, but eventually, the Masters were bound to find you.”

“Masters?” He muttered, scornful. “Really? They have you calling them _that?_ ”

A bit of irritation, easily checked. “It’s protocol.”

He didn’t want to admit that if not for the coincidental misfortune of Nathaniel choosing to practice Exy in _that center_ on _that night_ , he probably wouldn’t have been found. It wasn’t, after all, a problem for Kevin: here was his potential companion, his soon-to-be partner. The years of incompetent guides failing him at critical moments or uncertain counselors tittering nervously about relaxation techniques were in the past. Nathaniel could think what he wanted, but Kevin took pride in his job: he was one of best even without a companion. With one, he’d be better. He’d keep up with Riko and Jean on and off the field. The Moriyamas would trust him with more back-to-back missions, he’d get a pay raise, he’d submit a request for a flat off the premise, he’d-- shit, the possibilities were endless. Nathaniel’s misplaced pride would not jeopardize that future.

His to-be partner loitered at the threshold after he punched in the keycode and opened their room’s door. It was a new location, same style: before he’d roomed with Andrew, and now he’d room with Nathaniel. Easy. Moving up would be so easy with a companion, he couldn’t scarcely believe it.

In the tense silence (he wasn’t sure how to break it; Nathaniel didn’t want to) between them, he made a mental note to edit the dietary regimen Master Tetsuji provided for whatever preferences of the other’s he could fit in. That seemed polite. He’d been planning on setting up his blender tonight, anyway.

“You have a roommate?” His to-be partner asked, his voice more openly curious at the harmless sight of unpacked boxes, a stainless steel kitchenette, and a standard fold-out table with two plastic chairs. The bedroom was out of sight, but it would be smaller, with two beds that could be bunked.

He waited until Nathaniel realized he wouldn’t move until he was inside and stepped in. The door locked behind them, another keycode on the inside - the only exit, given small ventilation shafts and an utter lack of windows. It wasn’t typical, but then, neither was Nathan Wesninski’s son. 

By then, he didn’t need to answer the question. Nathaniel held himself so still and relaxed, Kevin didn’t need to listen to how his heart’s rapid beat kicked up faster to know the answer dawned on him, and he absolutely despised it.

It’d be better, Kevin thought, once they got those cuffs off him. He had the key in his pocket to manage just that. Right then, though, no matter how soundly Kevin had beaten him during their first meeting (and he was in significantly worse shape since then), Nathaniel looked willing to try for a round two if he stepped too close.

Proud _and_ foolhardy.

Not the best traits for a companion. Not the best traits for anyone under the Masters’ thumb. It’d take work.

Barely restraining a sigh, Kevin simply said, “I’ll show you around.”

  


* * *

  


Life in Evermore Laboratories went like this: if you weren’t preparing for tests, you were taking tests. If you weren’t taking tests, you were on a job. If you weren’t on a job, you were preparing for tests.

Reports and de-briefing counted as on the clock. Sleep and meals were mandatory test preparation. Jobs ranged from aiding forensics to aiding SWAT, with the occasional foreign deployment for stable pairs. Anything and everything that fell in between, Kevin knew, could be slotted into two basic categories: preparation and work.

(Once upon a time, he’d eked out time between preparation and work for something close to relaxation: he’d managed only because the other involved was a sentinel named Thea that rain roughly the same hours as him. He’d contacted her a few times over email since she’d been transferred across divisions, but as they’d expected, being monitored made relaxation difficult.)

(Stolen time, he reminded himself.)

(He and Thea, they’d stolen time.)

For the week after Nathaniel moved in (he took off the cuffs within an hour; they remained, untouched, at the bottom of a sleek, black-and-red gym bag), they prepared for a test Kevin had never taken in a manner Kevin hadn’t done since he signed the dotted line for the sentinel procedure. 

That was to say: they were confined to their apartment, the private exercise room next to it, and the hallway they needed to reach those two points. Their food and toiletries were delivered. They were to follow the exercise, diet and sleep regimens, and nothing else. They were left more alone than Kevin had been in years. Nathaniel was told to _relax_ , which meant Kevin was also supposed to relax, but Kevin hadn’t relaxed since Thea and Nathaniel, once commanded, endeavored to do the opposite. 

In summary: it was very long, very unrelaxing week.

“Nathaniel!” It was the third day. _Only the third day_ , his unsympathetic mind told him, and he tried, with thin patience running even thinner, to push it down. “Where’d you put the kale?”

From the other room, probably on his bed (he rarely left it if he could help it, Kevin had noticed), he lightly replied, “If you make another awful smoothie, I’m dumping it down the drain.”

Kevin grit his teeth, hands clenching on the open and kale-less kitchen cabinets. The wood creaked. “It’s _good for you._ You need it. You’ve two weeks to make up for.”

“Not the drain. I’ll flush it down the toilet,” Nathaniel muttered. It wasn’t a volume Kevin could have heard if he hadn’t been enhanced -- he wasn’t stupid, he had a fair idea of the difference.

And because he wasn’t stupid, he knew Nathaniel meant for him to hear it. The words were a test. The words were part of a series of tests. The tests came about without warning. 

After Kevin had explained the Sentinel Project’s aims and successes, including the scientific measurements behind his sensorary limitations, Nathaniel had decided he wanted to judge for himself just how _enhanced_ Kevin meant. He’d tap on every surface he could, soft to loud in a blink; he’d scratch strange, nonsensical patterns into the walls’ corners, too light for the human eye to see; honestly, Kevin thought it was only a matter of time until he somehow tinkered with the water system and changed the shower’s temperature degree by slow degree to listen to how Kevin would react. He always played at ignorance, too, refusing to answer when Kevin (patiently!) asked what he thought he was doing.

Because he knew what he was doing. He was testing his boundaries. Kevin knew what he was doing, too, and it was _infuriating._

It may have only been the third day, but he wouldn’t go on for a week like this. Closing the cabinet doors harder than he meant to, the doors bouncing open before whispering shut, Kevin squared his shoulders, swallowed his annoyance, and moved to their shared bedroom’s doorway. 

As he’d thought, Nathaniel sat tucked into the corner of his bed, his eyes bruised with sleeplessness and skin an unhealthy pallor. With his back against the wall and skin-muscle-and-bone legs drawn up, his body swimming in his standard issue clothes, he made some deep, new, inexplicable part of Kevin want to shove a sandwich down his throat and take him out for a run under the sun. 

He had his elbows on his knees and body slouched in an open, loose-limbed pose that told Kevin to _do what you like, I won’t talk_.

It was a bit like Andrew during his down swings.

Riko wouldn’t have allowed it to go this far. Jean would have picked up on his duties. Andrew _definitely_ wouldn’t put up with it.

Kevin’s patience snapped.

He told him, voice harsh, “We’re going to be a matched pair. We’re going to work together.”

“Says you,” Nathaniel threw back, the twist to his mouth positively sardonic.

“I didn’t even know who you were when I saw you--”

“That was the _point._ ”

“-- And if I had any choice in it, I would’ve picked a dozen others before settling for someone like you.”

That wasn’t entirely true. Nathaniel had a sharp mind and sharper eye - by how he threw himself into physical training despite his state, single-minded and determined, Kevin knew very well why the Masters had wanted him as a sentinel. Really, he would work well as a companion, too: capable and quick, he’d have no issue keeping up with Kevin on the field. He’d steady him when he needed it and take care of the finer details that he, body too rough to be delicate, couldn’t. Rather than yet another unmatched sentinel, to have Kevin and him working as a pair was a boon beyond compare. 

But looking at the unimpressed, unhappy sprawl on his bland, standard bed, not a single advantage came to mind. After all, none of them mattered if Nathaniel wouldn’t _work with him_. 

From those words alone, he could hear Nathaniel’s breathing constrict. God. He always acted like Kevin was one step from hitting him, which was _ridiculous_. He hadn’t made a single move against him no matter how much time he spent insulting Kevin’s very way of life.

 _Thk-thk, thk-thk,_ went Nathaniel’s heart. 

“Then do it,” Nathaniel was saying when Kevin refocused. “Pick somebody else. Let me out of here. Give me back to the Moriyamas to try their experiments on. I really don’t care, but quit trying to shove your delusions about a happy buddy cop tag-team down my throat.”

“It doesn’t work like that,” Kevin told him for the hundredth time. “I don’t choose who I match with.”

“Oh, no, you just _know_ ,” he sneered, throat swallowing convulsively as Kevin took another step into the room, heart picking up, _thk-thk-thk, thk-thk, thk-thk-thk,_ “can’t argue with a bullshit argument like that. Poke it too hard and it might break and make a mess.”

He stopped his forward advance to pinch the bridge of his nose. “I told you. They’re working on figuring out why. Once they do, they’ll learn how to transfer it to something more convenient.”

“Right. Because after you dragged me off the street and left me to rot in solitary, _I’m_ the inconvenience.”

Another angle, then. It was no use, he thought - they’d been through this conversation twice before. “You’re too old for the serum to take. Statistically, if you did leave companion training for the Masters’ experiments, it’s more likely that you’d be in far worse shape than you are now.”

“If I was even alive, you mean?” 

_Thk-thk-thk-thk_.

“There’s--”

“Yeah, I know. Things far worse than death. For example: listening to you prattle on about the Moriyamas’ all-encompassing megalomania.”

“ _What_ ,” Kevin snarled, “is it going to take to convince you that this doesn’t have to be painful?”

Nathaniel’s teeth clicked as he snapped his mouth shut. Bathed in the standard, too-bright fluorescent lighting, his eyes flashed and his shoulders pressed against the off-white wall.

“Sorry if I’m not leaping at the opportunity to be your on-demand teddy bear,” his blood was up, the whites of his eyes spreading, fear coating the room, “doling out help whenever you snap your fingers. Sorry if I’d thought I might have a chance at being my own person.”

Amidst the panic curled anger, red-hot and purely Kevin’s. “I’m not asking you to be someone else!”

“You believe that tripe? That sentinels and companions stand on equal ground?” He laughed, too loud and so, so scared. He scooted forward to put his feet on the ground, his body held too still to be anything but practiced. “Just from your brainwashed speeches, I know that’s a load of crock. They don’t care about your opinion, and they definitely won’t care about mine.”

“They don’t need to,” Kevin pressed, taking another four steps into the room. He felt like -- he felt like Nathaniel wanted to run, wanted to get away, and he knew, he just knew, he couldn’t let that happen. “We’re not administration. Of course we don’t have a say in-- in, whatever you’re so concerned about, our jobs, our deployment, any of that. That’s how being a soldier works.”

“You think you’re a soldier? Please. You’re their gun, Kevin; I’d just be the oil that kept you running smoothly.”

 _Riko_ would never have this issue. Jean would never make this an issue.

\-- Kevin thought that, remembered how Jean wouldn’t respond to anyone but Riko after a bad test or a bad job or a bad day, his shoulders eerily straight and head bowed, and immediately took it back. Riko and Jean worked in their own way. They were Evermore’s best because they worked as they did. With Nathaniel and him, it couldn’t go like that. They had to find their own way.

Before he knew it, his long stride taking five steps into the room, he stood toe-to-toe with the target of his frustrations. _That_ was a touch surprising: for all his back talk, he had yet to make a physical stand for himself.

Well. Now he had.

“I won’t,” Nathaniel said, each syllable clipped, “be yours, or anyone else’s, dog.”

For a moment, they regarded each other: two immovable forces, one in body and one in mind.

Slowly, Nathaniel’s heart settled and his breathing slowed. This defiant act, of all things, calmed him down. Or maybe, maybe, it was Kevin’s lack of a violent response.

Did he really think Kevin would be like that?

“I’m not asking you to be.” His reply came both in certainty and with deliberate care, because he couldn’t and wouldn’t speak for the Masters, but he knew what he wanted, he knew what he imagined, and it was him-and-Nathaniel, sentinel-and-companion, body-and-mind, the second wave after Riko’s first. “I’m only asking for you to give _us_ a chance.”

Another moment passed between them, Nathaniel’s measured inhale-exhale overpowering the overhead light’s buzzing. No, it wasn’t overpowering: it simply _was_ , a steady, solid sound Kevin’s brain didn’t mind focusing on, the tiny din of everyday noise falling out of view but not out of reach. If he wanted, he could pluck out what information he needed; if he didn’t want to, he could listen to Nathaniel and only Nathaniel. 

Whatever caused it, it was as close to relaxation as Kevin had been in years.

Kevin’s next breath took longer than normal to climb out of his lungs. 

Nathaniel broke the quiet with a low, “I hate the name Nathaniel.”

A beat.

Comprehension.

\-- Okay, but what the hell sort of hang-up was _that?_

Exasperated, Kevin huffed, “So? I have to call you something.” 

“Neil.” He said. “Call me Neil.”

“Neil,” Kevin stated, opened his mouth, caught Nathaniel’s blank look and how he held his breath, used his brain, and swallowed the words back down. 

After a pause, he amended what he had been about to say - a nasty comment on Nathaniel’s bad naming skills - into a slow, “Alright. Neil.” A beat. Then, “The Masters might not approve.”

“I thought this was about us, not them?”

Kevin didn’t have a snappy retort for that.

Against everything he’d done whenever they weren’t in the weight room, Nathaniel didn’t sit back on his bed. He watched Kevin for another moment, his blue - not brown, as Kevin remembered from the first day - eyes roving Kevin’s face and barely lingering on the number inked onto his cheekbone. 

Whatever he found must have satisfied him. He shouldered past Kevin to the kitchen, scraped a chair out, and sat at the table.

It was… a pass. 

That had been a test, and despite having no preparation, Kevin had passed.

It was an unusual feeling, _passing_ without even knowing what the exchange had been about.

Remembering what had started it all, Kevin followed and again asked, “Where’s the kale?”

“Sniff it out,” Neil told him, and for the first time on his own, pulled out Evermore’s documents on the functions and aims behind Project Sentinel from the files at the table’s corner.

Kevin grit his teeth, but went back into the bedroom to do just that.

(He found the packet stuffed in his gym bag, wrapped up in the still-damp bath towel he’d used that morning.)

(That was a much clearer test.)

(As he’d obviously passed, he made them both green smoothies and pushed Neil back to the table when he got up to dump it out. _Fair’s fair_ , he said, stiffly. _Working together means a give-and-take._ )

(Surprisingly - though he made an awful face - Neil went with it.)

  


* * *

  


Scientists and technicians came and went throughout the week, hidden from Nathaniel behind double-sided mirrors in the exercise room. Kevin couldn’t smell them, but for the first time in a week, their chatter and pen-scribble on paper through the glass pulled his concentration from spotting for Neil at the bench-press and, in short order, made a complete mess of it. Neil hadn’t been doing as well as he had previously; it was day seven, and he’d woken up feverish, his throat swelled and skin slick with sweat. If they were anyone else, he would’ve stayed in bed, but Kevin hadn’t been allowed to when he’d been in training for the serum and Jean wasn’t, ever, so he simply took Neil by the shoulder when he lagged behind and pulled him toward the weight room. In a small concession to how washed-up the illness made him look, he lowered the bar’s weight before he let Neil at it. Amazingly, Neil didn’t complain. 

One moment it was things as normal. Neil was slower and struggling more, and that was frustrating, but ultimately understandable. 

The next moment, it was the technician’s halting laugh and the scientist’s unamusing jokes, his ears straining to pick up their underlying breath and heartbeat. He heard _practically a pigsty_ and _I know!_ and _Friday?_ and _look_ and _working_ , and he heard a lot more besides, but he couldn’t process any of it, his thoughts wouldn’t budge, he had no mind, he wasn’t even a body, he was all human noise, blood and breath and a churning stomach and squeezing intestines and, “Kevin?”

Piece by piece, his body returned. First, his eyes - he blinked. Then, his fingers - a twitch. Finally, his head - he glanced from the window down to Neil, who watched him with hazy eyes and a face so red it couldn’t be healthy. 

_Obviously it couldn’t be healthy,_ his thoughts returned with. _He’s sick._

“What just happened?” Neil asked. His voice was tight. He hid it well, but Kevin could catch the twitch of muscle at the corner of his eye that betrayed pain at speaking through a swollen throat. “You froze up.”

Zoning, the Masters called it. An unintended side-effect of the serum. The whole reason sentinels needed companions.

The only thing holding us back, Riko often groused. Kevin agreed.

“I got lost in…” Something. Voices. His auditory sense, then. He frowned when he realized he’d trailed off, gave himself a mental shake, and sharpened his gaze on Neil. “Didn’t you read about the serum’s side-effects?”

“That was the next chapter,” Neil coughed out, his expression sugarine-sweet innocence. Chest heaving, face red, hair stuck to his forehead, he looked ragged. 

It would’ve been better if he’d stayed behind to heal faster.

“For today,” Kevin decided right then and there, because it was something Neil needed to learn before they joined the main group tomorrow and, therefore, the scientists couldn’t find fault with him calling them in early, “let’s skip the weights and review Project Sentinel’s functionality and purpose.”

“Great,” Neil sighed.He took a moment - Kevin turned away to give his weakness some privacy - to gather himself, and then pushed off the bench to follow Kevin out the door.

Once back in their kitchen, Neil nearly nodded off as Kevin walked him through the reasons for their training once more. A sentinel was a highly versatile, highly skilled operative with a chemically enhanced body, including their five senses. A disadvantageous side-effect manifested in zoning, whereupon the sentinel’s body overwhelmed their brain and they couldn’t think or act beyond one heightened sense. Zoning happened most in stressful situations. That was obviously an issue, as most of the operative’s field missions were high pressure. A companion served as the rock for an overwhelmed sentinel to cling to; if they were well-matched, a companion could keep their sentinel focused in the most chaotic circumstances. 

Kevin hadn’t zoned like that since Nathaniel-- or, Neil- arrived (and a while before that, truthfully: after ten years, he was fairly good at heading it off). He hadn’t come down so gently from one before, either, but that definitely had to do with Neil. The initial slip up probably, he reasoned, had to do with Neil’s illness.

When Neil failed to do more than mumble half-answers to his questions and the clock ticked to _late enough for a reasonable hour to stop_ , Kevin said, “If you can barely keep your eyes open, you’re not retaining anything I say. Get to bed.”

Neil protested, his eyes cracked open. Kevin had none of it; he put away the files, took his and Neil’s milk-ringed glasses to the sink, and told him he couldn’t continue the lesson as he’d be taking a shower. Neil couldn’t protest that.

When he got out, he found him curled up under his sheets, his breath thin and catching through his throat. Stepping closer to the bed, he held a hand over Neil’s forehead: even with a half-foot of distance, he could feel the fever burning hotter. 

Tomorrow couldn’t be his introduction to the others. If he was at anything less than full capacity, they’d eat him alive.

Unaware to Kevin’s disconcernation, Neil slumbered on.

Wrapped up in cataloguing what was wrong with him, Kevin didn’t catch the footsteps outside their apartment until the keypad beeped and the door creaked open. The person moved in without further preamble, their steps unusually light and quiet.

A visitor was _not_ usual, and not protocol for any scientist or technician.

Kevin put himself in the bedroom’s doorway in two seconds flat, his hand reaching around for the frying pan on the stove _just in case_

“That’s not going to put a dent on me,” the intruder drawled, and Kevin scowled at him.

Before he let himself demand what in the world Andrew thought he was doing sneaking into restricted wards, he turned to close the bedroom door and grant Neil a little privacy. Andrew, unchanged since the last time they’d seen each other, stepped forward in one fluid motion and stopped him, the other sentinel’s hand snapping tight on the door.

“Now, now, what’ve you got in there?”

“I told you,” Kevin hissed, voice higher than it needed to be, his hackles up, “they pulled in my companion.”

“And I told you, that’s an interesting choice of words.” Andrew met and held his eyes, the shorter man’s face shifting from vague curiousity to boredom as Kevin refused to give ground. Between their hands, fake wood creaked and, slowly, warped. “You ran off on me for a week, and now you won’t even let me see what you ran toward?”

“Who,” Kevin corrected him, “and he’s currently sick.”

“Strange thing,” as Andrew finally broke their stare to look pointedly around the small apartment’s kitchen and then, less pointedly, at Kevin himself, “getting sick without anyone else around. That is how it goes, isn’t it? A week-long honeymoon with your future security blanket.”

Kevin bristled.

He had a point with the illness (not the security blanket). Kevin hadn’t let himself think too much about it. Why would the Masters sabotage his companion?

The door creaked again, its frame shuddering once.

Andrew said, too soft for human ears, “ _Kevin._ ”

Fully understanding Andrew was something Kevin had given up on long ago, but he thought there was something like a demand that went beyond simply wanting Kevin’s compliance in that whisper of a word. Something that echoed his _you ran off on me_ and _what is it?_ \-- like this had been eating at him all week, something he’d been wondering and maybe, even, worrying over.

Now, Kevin struggled to understand Andrew, but he wasn’t _that bad_ at it. No, it wasn’t worry.

It was simply, he thought, that Andrew didn’t like his singular friend - if you could call what they had friendship, which Riko certainly didn’t - out of his eye-sight for so long. In truth, Kevin didn’t much like leaving him either; he was used to constant companionship from before Riko met Jean, and how easily Riko moved up from him and on to better jobs had stung. Moreover, as both Andrew and he lacked companions, they watched each other’s back on the few runs they were allowed on. 

As proven by how they both were standing here, it had worked well enough.

Kevin let go of the door with an equally inaudible, “Don’t wake him. I need him better by tomorrow.”

Waving a dismissive hand, Andrew stepped into the darkened bedroom. He didn’t bother with the light switch as he moved forward, almost silent to Kevin’s ears and most definitely silent to Neil’s sleeping ones.

Once Andrew reached Neil’s side, he stilled, his head cocked. Outlined from the kitchen’s light, he took an unusually long time to contemplate Neil’s unconscious form; Kevin shifted his weight in the doorway, an unpleasant and unfamiliar feeling rolling in his gut over how intensely Andrew watched his companion. It lasted so long Kevin almost thought he’d zoned, but his opening his mouth and taking a breath for a comment broke Andrew out of whatever trance he’d fallen into. He pulled himself away, face as unruffled as ever, and slinked past Kevin to the kitchen table.

With one last glance to Neil - the unpleasant feeling smoothed easily - Kevin finally shut the door.

“He’s fine,” Kevin murmured, once more only a few octaves over audible. It was how they’d talked in their shared room, gym, cafeteria, training field and wherever else, and it was natural here, with a human - companion or not - in the other room. “He needs a lot of work.”

Hip propped against the kitchen table and shoulders rolled back to work out whatever muscles locked up in that momentary freeze-up over Neil, the look Andrew had on his face told him he wasn’t impressed with Kevin or his future partner. “Why were they sneaking him around? That wasn’t usual.”

It hadn’t been. The two weeks they told him to wait while they straightened Nathaniel out had been a new, agonizing type of pain. Knowing his chance for advancement was holed up somewhere and he _wasn’t allowed to visit_ had been ridiculous, absurd, and dangerously distracting. Hell, he’d spent almost every slight disagreement with Riko fighting back a zoning episode.

When it came to telling Andrew what he was obviously after, it was true that the Masters hadn’t told him _not_ to share Wesninski’s backstory. But some rules didn’t need to be said to be known.

Except Andrew’s eyes seemed to know, and -- they’d shared a few secrets over the years. None yet made it back to Riko or his relatives. Of course, they were usually about mistakes made on missions, or extra materials used to clean up their trail, not a warped web of family dynamics. 

Then again, he knew about Jean’s purchase and the Masters’ general story. That wasn’t common knowledge even among the dozen successful sentinels.

Andrew also said, “I’ve twenty-three minutes, Day. Make it fast if you want me to hear it from you.”

So Kevin made it fast.

Nathaniel had been intended for Project Sentinel in its fledgling years. His father, Nathan, had promised his heir to the first round of official testing. His mother got cold feet, as it was said, took her son, a briefcase worth half a billion, and ran. It’d shaken the trust between the Moriyama and Wesninski families for years, which wrecked havoc on Wesninski’s east coast empire. 

That branch wasn’t of concern to Kevin, so he didn’t know much more, only that Neil’s mother was undoubtedly dead and Neil had been living under a false name and playing recreational Exy for who-knew-how-long before Kevin found him.

(He left out the Butcher and his son’s introduction to Kevin and Riko thirteen years ago. It wasn’t relevant.)

Andrew’s mouth twitched at Exy, but at the end, his question was simply, “Neil?”

“He hates Nathaniel, apparently.”

“Picky.”

Neil was. In Evermore, he wouldn’t be forever. But, then, it wasn’t his worst trait. 

Kevin shrugged one shoulder.

Then he looked, properly _looked_ , Andrew over. He wasn’t expecting injuries-- the others were too terrified of him to do that, and he couldn’t have gotten a job started and finished in a week- but his makeshift field partner had a bad habit of an awful diet when not monitored, and aside from Kevin, hardly anyone monitored Andrew more than the tests necessitated.

When he caught him looking, Andrew quietly snorted. “You’re the one that disappeared. I was enjoying a room all to myself.”

As his search failed to turn up any significant weight loss or new iron-deficient-caused bruises, Kevin accepted Andrew’s answer. That he’d (most likely) hot-wired the cameras and swipe the keycode spoke of concern for Kevin, but it was also pragmatic: Andrew didn’t like surprises. Of course he’d want to know Neil’s reveal before everyone else.

Not a second after he’d glanced away from his roommate to the microwave’s clock, Andrew stepped up to him with a quick tap on his shoulder. “The staff finally took out Smalls’ personal effects and changed the bedding. The roster has me, you and your new toy in one room.”

A muscle he hadn’t even known was tense uncurled. Breath felt like it shuddered from him, but no human would’ve picked up on the shift.

“His name’s Neil,” Kevin reminded him to stave off the relief, but Andrew quirked one _and?_ eyebrow at him before turning for the door. A short wave, no glance back as he typed the keycode, a breath’s worth of time for the lock to unclick, and he slipped back out. 

Behind him, Kevin stood ramrod straight and, out of practicality and learned habit, replayed the exchange.

Would Andrew and Neil together jeopardize his overall performance? That couldn’t be established without the two interacting with both parties conscious. 

But by how Andrew hadn’t done more than toss around a few insulting nicknames, the answer was: no. 

_Really_ , Andrew’s sense of order would be good against Neil’s chaos. Maybe it’d rub off on him.

Though ideally he would gain the calm, steadfast part of Andrew, not the uninterested, unmotivated part.

That was when he had to admit that those who roomed with them, Kevin and Andrew, didn’t often last long. Neil, by necessity, would _have_ to be an exception. 

_Hopefully_ , Kevin concluded as he let the kitchen’s low buzzing and stagnate air wash over him, _the faster pace won’t break all of Neil’s spine._

  


* * *

  


Neil was not better by the morrow.

Master Tetsuji and three escorts, one of them a sentinel, arrived just as they finished their breakfast. Kevin had him gulp down two fever reducer pills with his orange juice; unfortunately, they hadn't made the slightest difference by the time Master Tetsuji came calling, and there was no way they'd keep him waiting.

The Master asked him if Neil required binding. Kevin said, "I don't believe so, sir."

Dark eyes took in the figure standing rigid and sweaty behind Kevin. He didn't have to glance back to know Neil didn't bow his head or do anything but meet those eyes and glare. Kevin had told him how to act. Kevin had been clear. Neil, of course, would not heed what was best for him.

It wasn't a surprise when the Master had Kevin cuff his hands.

"Jump when he says jump, huh?" Neil breathed at him, too low to be discernible but too loud to be missed by the enhanced. Kevin didn't acknowledge it as he snapped metal around his wrists, Neil's hands bound before him. At the end Neil whispered, "Good boy," so pointed and sarcastic despite the croaking quality of his voice that Kevin couldn't stem his frown.

When he turned back around to the Master's unimpressed face, he dutifully repeated what Neil had said.

It wasn't a surprise when the baton drove into both their stomachs.

Neil gasped something after that, but it was choked enough that Kevin pretended he hadn't understood.

The way back to the Nest was much more familiar than the original journey to the restricted ward. It also inspired much less anticipation, and absolutely no excitement. Introductions had to be made -- it wasn't every day a match was made. The Nest's mess hall, with its stage at one end and mandatory attendance hours no matter what jobs or tests or preparations personnel had to do, worked perfectly. A woman announced them before they walked on. The hall was, as always at this hour, full.

For one absurd moment, Kevin entertained asking to do this another day when his companion wasn't so obviously ill.

But there had to be a reason for it. The absurd moment passed, Kevin unlocked Neil’s cuffs and ignored the unhealthy heat radiating from his skin and, after, the way Neil rubbed at his wrists. The woman gesturing for them to walk on, and Kevin understood quite well what was at work here. The cuffs that anyone who had passed them had seen, the sickness: it was all make clear who was in charge, what they could do, and where exactly Neil stood. It was embarrassing for Kevin, too, but then, it was partially his fault. If he had worked harder at teaching Neil proper manners, it wouldn't have been necessary. He shouldn't take it more personally than that. He tried not to.

If he hadn't liked Andrew looking at Neil, an entire room was abhorrent.

(But that, too, was a lesson as much as a test.)

The woman - she preferred Kathy, not Dr. Ferdinand - spoke for them. To a hall of interested and amused employees, she introduced Nathaniel Wesninski, the son of Project Sentinel’s key backer and generous philanthropist, Nathan Wesninski. He’d been thought to be dead after his mother abducted him, but in actuality, he’d been forced to live on the run with his abusive and controlling kidnapper. Sickness at last did Mary Hatford in and he’d, after thirteen years, finally returned to his father to join their cause. As it just so happened, his age wasn’t an issue: Kevin and he matched for sentinel and companion collaboration.

(Kevin did not move. A few technicians and scientists murmured approvingly, but his fellow soldiers remained similarly statuesque).

(At his side, Nathaniel’s jaw clenched so tight Kevin could hear his teeth grind.)

But thirteen years with abuse can’t be easily undone, she cautioned. Nathaniel was still rough around the edges. They could expect sudden, vicious aggression and compulsive lying. 

It wasn’t his fault his mother had made him into this. Nevertheless, if they would do their best to teach him what life at the structured and organized Evermore Laboratories _could be,_ he was expected to be a successful and talented addition to their team.

Kevin had his rehearsed lines to say, to the effect of promising his own skill and prowess to the nation’s betterment. Neil should have echoed it, but when he didn’t, no one looked surprised.

Kathy was one of their biochemical scientists, but as she’d grown older, she more enjoyed the comfortable position of being their public face. She was good at her job -- as evidenced here, she was convincing. 

The introduction finished on her closing word, Kevin and Nathaniel ushered off to shake the science team’s hands and meet their allocated medical staff. They’d have first priority to any rooms or check-ups on the slightest issue; they were, after all, officially worth well over several million in investments alone.

Their assigned practitioner, David Wymack, had a slight smile on his face as he congratulated Kevin on finding his match. They hadn’t the best relations (they both knew he was, technically, Kevin’s father; as Kevin hadn’t met him or known that until he was close to twenty, he wasn’t entirely sure what to do with that information). As opposed to the others, he also fearlessly stuck and kept his hand out for Nathaniel to shake.

Dr. Wymack was a decent man. He didn’t let many boss him around, or tell him how to think. He was incredible at his job, which was how he kept it despite those flaws.

“That’s a nasty cough you have.” The doctor asked in the uncomfortable silence to follow when Nathaniel refused to take his hand. 

It was the slightest shift in weight, the slightest loss of balance, but Kevin caught Nathaniel’s sway and grimace as he swallowed. By Dr. Wymack’s frown, he did, too.

Finally Nathaniel asked, “You have something for it?”

“I’m here to make sure you can keep fighting,” he replied, perfectly level. His hand finally dropped back to his side, but he didn’t look less invested. “After you finish mingling, visit my office. You’ve time today, don’t you, Kevin?”

“Today’s purely orientation and rounds, sir.”

So. Yes. They had time.

“Good. I expect to see you before I close shop.” He gave Nathaniel one more serious look-over, his frown deepening and something dark passing behind his eyes, but then he nodded to Kevin and nodded again to Nathaniel and took his leave with their main nurse, Abby Winfield.

After that, it was all combat personnel. 

Within four minutes, Kevin learned that Riko and Jean were still on their overseas mission. So that was why he hadn’t heard anything from his oldest friend-- it was absolutely understandable.

Within five minutes, Andrew appeared to stare the helicopter operator that had told him about Riko and Jean into making a hasty excuse about cold lunches and leave. 

Kevin barely restrained a sigh. “He was just keeping me updated, Andrew.”

“No. He was hoping you’d slip up.” 

“Who are you?” Nathaniel asked, which wasn’t the first thing he’d said but was the first conversation he initiated. He’d apparently realized that being silent the whole way through wouldn’t do him any favors. Kevin could only hope that realization would carry on into their tour of the place.

“You don’t remember?” A bored look but mean twist to his lips. “You must have been more out of it than we thought.”

A rational person would have been unsettled by that. Through the fog of his illness, Nathaniel just looked irritated.

This time, Kevin didn’t restrain a sigh.

“Andrew Minyard,” he supplied. “Our roommate.”

Nathaniel cut a sidelong look at him. “Thought they’d want to keep us… cozy.” 

Awkward. That was an awkward trail off. Even Kevin picked up on it: the awkwardness, and the underlying worry.

Andrew, to Kevin’s eye, looked unimpressed. _He_ , at least, knew Kevin wasn’t the sort to randomly beat people in the night (or, anything worse). “There aren’t many rooms capable of containing a sentinel in an emergency lockdown. All the sound-proofing and delicate wiring, never mind the re-enforced steel, costs a pretty penny.”

“Lockdowns happen often?” 

“By the grace of our Masters,” too deadpan to be anything but sarcastic, Andrew _seriously_ needed to watch his mouth, “no.”

Neil looked suspicious. To be fair, as far as the mess hall meeting went, if he didn’t look ill, he looked suspicious.

Andrew’s reputation for sharp words and quicker violence didn’t deter other troops from approaching him and Nathaniel, but it did shorten the amount of time they were willing to attempt to make small talk. Most of the combat operatives Kevin had served with before understood well enough what Andrew was like, and knew also that as long as they kept out of arm’s reach, there wasn’t any real threat in discussing how this would shift up future missions. More than a few lamented the likelihood that they’d never serve with Kevin again; he could always be trusted to stay on task, and he wasn’t near as volatile as some of the other sentinels.

When they said this, Nathaniel guffawed and coughed out something about narrow-minded arrogance. Andrew, on Kevin’s other side, did nothing to berate him while Kevin continued to pave their reputation’s road.

(Maybe Kevin should’ve put in for a room transfer.)

In any case, Kevin found himself doing the bulk of the talking. 

He really shouldn’t have been surprised by that.

(He just wished… sometimes, he wished.)

“Our first mission can’t be expected for a while,” he told Laila, the third and final paired sentinel within their department, “he was a civilian only a month ago.”

“Life on the run doesn’t sound like a typical civilian,” she returned, and peered at Nathaniel. Alvarez, her companion, crossed her arms at her side.

Some believed Kathy’s story. Those people didn’t have any reason to care. Of the more skeptical, they weren’t allowed to care enough. In any case: it had nothing to do with their operations, so it really didn’t matter.

“We did our best, all considered,” Nathaniel replied, dry enough to peel wallpaper.

Luckily, Laila didn’t take his indifference personally. The two women were relatively new additions to their department - in fact, they and another sentinel, Knox, been swapped in for Thea, another unmatched sentinel and a full medical team - and, in preparation for their missions, Kevin planned to pull as much information and advice from Laila and Alveraz as possible.

Mingling accomplished as well as it could be with one silent and one sarcastic shadow, Kevin deemed Nathaniel ready to move on to the tour of the facilities open to them.

There weren’t many. The gym, the showers, the test chambers, the silent study room, the library, and, finally, the medical ward. There were other treasures like a gun range and multiple obstacle courses hidden in Evermore’s labyrinthine hallways, but Nathaniel wouldn’t have access to those until he was given security clearance. 

Unfortunately, that meant those areas were off-limits to Kevin as well. 

As they walked to his office twenty-five minutes later than Kevin had hoped, the time wasted ticking in his head, Kevin said, “We’ve already lost too much time from this illness. After Dr. Wymack prescribes what you need to get back on your feet, every waking moment will be put toward getting you in shape.”

“Why are you still here?” Nathaniel, completely ignoring Kevin, asked Andrew, who also completely ignored Kevin. 

Kevin, ignored, grit his teeth.

“I’m going to be here as long as I need to be.” One light eyebrow arched. “Is that a problem for you?”

“Didn’t you hear? I’m Kevin’s new babysitter. He’s big enough not to need two.”

“Cute as your fretful yapping is, naivety grows old fast. Open your eyes, _Nathaniel._ You don’t know anything about this world.”

“I’ve seen enough,” he growled back. “I know I won’t be here long.”

Andrew’s eyes made a slow trek from the ceiling’s camera and back to a bristling Nathaniel. “You won’t? No one trusts a liar. Everyone around you is stronger and better trained than you. So, you’ll need to coordinate. But with who? Who’s going to help a poor victim that doesn’t even know what’s good for him?”

“Running from here won’t be the hardest thing I’ve done.”

“Your mother’s dead.” Nathaniel, quick enough for a human to miss but a bright red flag for Kevin and Andrew, held back a flinch. “You’ve nowhere to run to. Recklessness like that is why they’ve already backed you into a corner.”

Teeth bared and eyes bright, Nathaniel drew himself up for a retort--

And Kevin placed one hand on his shoulder to lightly shove him into the office, belatedly knocking on the door-frame after. “Dr. Wymack? Apologies for the delay.”

“What delay?” Wymack returned, seated at a desk piled high with files. Abby tsked from her own paper-filled workstation, but when Kevin glanced to her, she had a smile on her face. They were decent people, Kevin again thought; skilled and respected in their respective fields, he’d never once heard of a problem arising from those under David and Abby’s care. The same could not be said for others.

For example: Andrew’s former and Riko’s present doctor, Dr. Proust.

Abby was the one to ask, “Andrew? Are you alright with waiting? We asked, since we know you and Kevin continue to act as a unit, but Dr. Dobson refused to transfer you to us.”

Andrew leaned against the doorway and replied, aloof as ever, “I’ll wait.”

It turned out Wymack wanted to do more than diagnose Nathaniel’s illness and prescribe some medication. He needed new data from Kevin to compare any differences before and after his locating a companion, and an entire physical for Nathaniel. The latter could wait until after the illness cleared and, in Wymack’s words, _you quit looking like you’re about to keel over, kid,_ but they needed to get the former out of the way as soon as possible.

Good thing for Abby, or the silence between Wymack’s stilted questions and Kevin’s stiff answers would have been bothersome.

It turned out Neil had strep, and absolutely no reason for moving as much as he was. Kevin hadn’t been allowed in the room while they checked his companion over, but the walls were thin, and his ears were better than good. He didn’t need to see what was happening to know Wymack, after the diagnosis was made, had to take a long pause to pinch -- his nose, probably, or temples. Abby’s sympathetic murmur of, “Nothing to be done for it but to put you on the road to recovery,” was, for a moment, the only sound beyond Neil’s pained breathing and occasional cough to come from the room.

When the door opened, Wymack was gruffer than usual. Abby explained what had to be done, wrote the prescription for Wymack to sign, told them the antibiotics would arrive by the morning, and sent them on their way. 

It wasn’t a busy day, if you asked Kevin, but it had been… long.

When Neil clued in to their moving for the dormitory, he notably flagged, his feet dragging and head bowed. Offering help or commenting on it seemed like the last thing he’d want, so Kevin kept himself quiet.

The room was bigger than the ‘honeymoon suite’ they’d shared. Much like Andrew, it hadn’t changed: clean, minimalist and well-organized, it felt exactly as Neil had said. Cozy.

This time around, Neil didn’t argue about being sent to bed.

Left in the kitchen, the lighting the perfect brightness and wiring hardly humming, Kevin sank onto one of their (newly replaced, after the incident with Smalls) plastic-cushioned chair.

He didn’t want to beat around the bush. He looked at Andrew and asked, voice too low to be caught by the microphones they both suspected to be in the walls (they _knew_ there were cameras), “Is he going to be an issue?”

“For me?”Andrew asked, paused. Shrugged. Then, “For himself? Yes.”

Kevin clicked his tongue. “I knew _that._ ” 

“Finally find someone too stubborn to be wooed by your questionable charms, Day?”

“He’ the second I’ve found matching that unfortunate description. You still haven’t scheduled a time for the new simulation.”

“New doesn’t necessarily mean better. And anyway, I’ve been busy.”

“How? Don’t say you put all your time toward sneaking into visiting me.”

“Oh, no, that was a one day excursion. I’ve been negotiating with the suppliers on upping our cigarette rations.”

“You need to _practice._ ” Kevin hissed, a little too loud. He struggled to bring his voice down, taking a moment to breathe long and deep. The day had been _long._ His stomach didn’t hurt from the morning’s strike - it hadn’t hurt three minutes after, really - but the memory was there. If Neil turned out to be another Andrew in terms of work ethic, Kevin wasn’t sure how long he’d remain sane.

Andrew’s chin raised, just a centimeter. “Worried I won’t live up to your expectations?”

“You _can_. If you put in an ounce of effort, you would, in a heartbeat. You’ll see how rewarding it can be - you’ll find your enjoyment.”

Another blank look. “This is a dead horse, and I’m bored of beating it. Change the subject.”

Kevin racked his brain for one, and found: there was too much. About the illness, about Nathaniel’s treatment, about the up-coming shift in dynamic, about Wymack. About Riko, too, and what was going to happen when he returned. 

It so much, not a single thing agreed to be given word.

Andrew looked at him, just took him in, silent and assessing. He then said, steadying in a way Neil managed only for his senses: “Go to bed. ”

He didn’t argue. He went.

  


* * *

  


Seven days went quickly. The antibiotics worked fast, and orientation soared by.

“I don’t actually snore,” Kevin whispered at Andrew on their first night back. The blond looked worn out in a manner that could only be contributed to sleeplessness. He also looked close to strangling anything for making even the slightest sound.

“Nathaniel,” Andrew replied, loud enough for all dorm occupants to hear, “wouldn’t quite coughing.”

As if on cue, Neil coughed louder. He added a glare for good measure.

(His roots began to really show, too, black giving way to tired brown and, eventually, auburn.)

The seven days after those went equally quickly. They had a routine, a series of goals - training in self-defense, gear and strategy for Neil, training in working with Neil for Kevin - and they met them, one by one. It was gloriously, beautifully familiar for Kevin, and to-the-point and rigorous for Neil, which gave him little time to complain.

Their little room remained the same amidst all the change, up to and including its new resident: to Kevin’s utmost surprise, Neil began to almost relax whenever they returned to the dorm, oftentimes quietly going for his library loaned books and settling down easily for mechanical and medicinal related studies. 

“He’s adapting,” Kevin once whispered to Andrew during their late night talks. Sentinels didn’t require as much sleep as unenhanced folk-- Kevin knew that, but suddenly being attached to the hip with a pure human made him realize just how _much_ time humans wasted being unconscious.

Andrew’s finger tapped once on the table. He wasn’t as convinced about Neil’s slow progress toward integration.

But it didn’t matter what he thought. Neil cleared the basic qualification tests and began classes in armed self-defense training and firearm maintenance. Kevin received personal congratulations for his work with bringing a former civilian up to speed.

Andrew saw Kevin believe what they told him: it was all falling into place. Soon enough, they’d be back on the field.

Andrew also saw how carefully Neil watched anything there was to watch about how Evermore operated. He wasn’t a complete fool, Andrew would give him that; he hid it well. You wouldn’t know unless you were looking for it, and not blinded by future possibilities.

(Officially, he should have reported what he noticed.)

(Unofficially, he didn’t give a shit. It was, for once in this monotonous life, interesting.)

They had one day off a week -- or, rather, one day where they were required to stay within the library, study room or their dormitory. It was usually the day that did in their roommates, whoever they were; with Neil, of course, things were different. Despite what he thought, he wasn’t going anywhere. Not with how he was. Andrew was sure of that.

Kevin being who he was thought it best they use the day to study, which meant Andrew tipped his chair back and contemplated the off-white ceiling while Neil digressed from engine repair to what models of car were easiest to hot-wire. Andrew joined in at that, throwing out what objects he knew could fit inside a glove compartment (ranging from weaponry to a small pot of petunias). They digressed further into horticulture and gardening, all purely theoretical.

It took Kevin a while to realize Neil didn’t know the first thing about car manufacturers, and even longer after that to catch on to what both Andrew and Neil conspired toward: that was, pissing Kevin Day off.

“Have you ever even seen a bonsai?” Kevin demanded, to which Neil - for the first time since they’d met and the first time, Andrew was willing to bet, since arriving at Evermore.

“I’ve seen a whole bonsai plantation,” Neil replied, completely straight-faced. 

“The one in South America?” Andrew prompted.

Neil nodded. Kevin sputtered, “There’s no bonsai plantations in South America. How many places have you actually been?”

A beat, the easy atmosphere wavering. “A few.”

With a crack that made Kevin glare and Neil pretend he hadn’t jumped, Andrew let his chair legs hit the ground. The easy atmosphere broke. Neil hunched his shoulders and stared at him.

(Riling Kevin up was one thing. Omissions and lies were another. They weren’t _interesting_ , they were everyday.)

After another pause, he begrudgingly admitted, “Only Europe, Canada and America.”

“Where in Europe?”

“Why?”

Andrew didn’t speak French, but anyone could recognize what Kevin asked with _français_ in the sentence.

Across the table and over forgotten books, Neil’s face shuttered. When it opened again, he was all defensiveness. He loftily gave an affirmative in French, and a few words besides.

Andrew rolled his eyes.

Catching it, Neil snapped, “You don’t, obviously.”

“For someone without anything left to lose, you sure are cagey.”

“If I had nothing left, you wouldn’t have any questions.”

“We should get back to studying,” Kevin edged in, his shoulders tense. Perhaps he thought this was the beginning of their peaceful calm breaking. 

If it wasn’t about his assignments, Kevin Day was a blind fool at the best of times. 

That was part of why he needed watching by more than a companion poised to run at the closest opportunity.

For a stretched out minute, Andrew and Neil stared one another down. Andrew took his time in memorizing the look, rare as it was in these halls: defiance, pure and wrathful, with an anxiety-ridden break-down pending for the near future. If their calm was going to break, it wouldn’t be between Andrew and Neil. It would be all Neil. How he’d be after that--- wasn’t Andrew’s concern.

It would be a shame, if it went completely wrong and the handlers decided Neil was better brain dead or, less likely, terminated. It would be a real shame - he thought he understood what Kevin meant by the boon of a companion, of at least belonging to one’s body after years of the world being too much.

But ultimately, that wasn’t _Andrew’s_ problem.

(Make no mistake: Nathaniel Wesninski, or Neil Wesninski, or whoever he wanted to be, was a problem.)

“Fine,” Neil at last said, and broke the staring contest to look back to his textbook. 

Knowing he had nothing left to do here, Andrew stood.

“Where are you going?” Kevin asked him, once more in a tizzy. That was good. Kevin needed a goal to function. Without one, he might just stall out. Andrew gave him a glance, but spoke with his feet: he went for the bedroom to fetch socks and boots, and then, after lacing up, headed for the door.

Neil watched because he always watched. Kevin, because he wasn’t as much of a fool as he could have been, understood, and snapped his fingers in front of Neil’s face to refocus his attention on mechanics.

They’d be fine for an hour and a half. Kevin wouldn’t let Neil leave the table until he could answer every chapter question, and Neil had too much restlessness building in him to manage it today.

Bee kept her office open from morning to curfew on days off. She was a physician, not a therapist, but she had a way with words, and sworn confidentiality besides. She also had the only bowl of hard candy to found in the entire godforsaken complex.

Her nurse - usually out on the off days, but someone Andrew could, if he needed to, ask about - was of interest to him, too. Last he heard, the nurse wanted funding to return to school and switch professions to family practitioner. It wasn’t likely to happen any time soon, not with a greater need for nurses than doctors in Evermore, but he wanted to keep an eye on him nonetheless. 

The peace, the too-good equilibrium between Kevin-Neil-and-him, crawled under his skin as an itch he hadn’t felt in years.

  


* * *

  


“Andrew?”

Patient and quiet, Bee had been saying that for a while. He didn’t recall it, of course, but he _knew it._

He supplied an answer to the question to stave off the burning in his brain. Grape lingered on his tongue; it wasn’t the best jolly rancher flavor, but getting sweets into Evermore was more a case of beggar than chooser. “Taste.”

“When was the last time you zoned?”

A beat.

“Fourteen days.”

“That’s impressive. Amazing, in fact. According to my estimate, your last record was seventy-five hours.”

He thought of their room’s new addition, and didn’t reply.

  


* * *

  


It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Bee. He just he didn’t trust the walls.

The thought had occurred, but it wasn’t until then that he began to remember what it was like not to plan for absolute powerlessness.

It was --- addicting.

  


* * *

  


As was the way of life, once calm set in, it broke.

The day after - there was a weekday attached, but they never saw the sun or a calender beyond the date section on mission reports, so Andrew didn’t bother keeping conscious track - Riko Moriyama and his companion returned from overseas.

A typical day began at five hundred hours, with lunch at twelve hundred hours. Curfew was twenty-one-hundred hours sharp. Most people turned in within the hour before that, exhausted and numb and dreaming of nothing but a warm dinner and sleep. Kevin, of course, refused to call it quits before absolutely necessary (and even then, on days that weren’t purely physical and left Neil’s eyes more than half-open, brought out texts to be studied). Since Kevin refused to turn in, Andrew’s days also stretched closer to sixteen hours than they otherwise would have. 

It was routine. They pushed themselves to their body’s limits in training, but they still never dragged as much as Neil seemed to when he tried to keep up with them (in activities, not bench weight).

No one but security details - largely robotic, or, failing that, no one with a day job in Evermore - were permitted in the halls after curfew. 

So, they returned to their dorm right on the minute mark.

Three minutes after that, four sharp knocks echoed through their room.

Let that last point be amended: no one but security details and Moriyamas walked the halls after curfew.

Even without a whiff or noise from beyond the doors, Andrew had an inkling who it might be. Neil froze on his blurry-eyed and sore trek from bathroom to bedroom, while Kevin’s neck cracked at how quickly he looked over.

He took a few steps, his face vaguely hopeful, but Andrew beat him to it.

The first thing Riko said to him in two months was, “You’re still here?”

Affecting shock, Andrew asked, “You’re still alive?” 

And then he made to shut the door in the man’s face.

“Riko!” 

That was the only reason the door didn’t click shut.

Kevin was at his side in an instant, foot stuck out and a pleased, quietly arrogant look on his face. He was flattered to be visited, as if he hadn’t been certain his supposed friend of an age and a half would. “Welcome back. Oh, Jean -- you too. Both of you, come in. Andrew, come on, knock it off.”

(Outside of his assignments, Kevin Day was a blind fool.)

It wasn’t surprising to note Neil had disappeared as much as he could, the bedroom door open but inside dark. It was more surprising they hadn’t woken up to him hiding under the bed and biting any hand that reached for him, Andrew had once remarked to Kevin; he’d gotten a sharp look for it, but only because Kevin knew it to be true.

“I heard they found your companion,” Riko was saying. Andrew listened to him with half an ear, paying mind to his tone more than the words. Currently, the majority of his efforts were funneled into staring Jean Moreau down across the table they sat around. 

It was tradition at this point. Jean, his death wish growing every year, rarely looked away.

“You can probably hear him,” Kevin joked, or as close to joking as he came.

Riko could. He could also undoubtedly smell him in every inch of the apartment: the dull, worn scent of a person running on fear and fumes. Sometimes Kevin mused on what Neil might smell like when he relaxed. Most times, he didn’t even register there was an alternative. _Everyone_ in Evermore Laboratories smelled of some variety of chemicals and fear.

Everyone except Riko Moriyama and his uncle, that was. “Nathaniel Wesninski. Really, I can’t believe it. It’s been years.”

“-- Nathaniel!” Kevin called. Andrew wondered if he even noticed how he conformed to Riko’s standards. Probably not. “We have guests. Bring another chair and say hi.”

From the dark bedroom: nothing.

Jean Moreau’s eyebrow twitched. Andrew’s lip curled.

Kevin frowned. Riko, slowly, sat back.

“Is he shy?” Riko asked his long-time friend and former, unofficial companion. He sounded mocking. 

Andrew once more analyzed the cost-benefits of permanently disfiguring Tetsuji’s nephew. 

As he still didn’t know where Aaron slept and how long it would take to reach him, he supposed he’d wait a bit longer.

“He prefers to avoid headaches as much as he can,” Andrew finally threw out, if only to see Kevin grimace in embarrassment. Really, he didn’t know what Kevin expected. Outside of the two of them and possibly Dr. Wymack, Neil had no positive experiences with Evermore personnel, let alone one with the last name Moriyama.

That was, Andrew believed, partially by design. But that was a thought for another time.

Chair legs scraping on tile, Kevin stood to fetch him. Of course, that was when Neil appeared at the hallway’s opening to the kitchen.

“Riko Moriyama?” Neil asked.

Smiling benevolently, Riko gestured to the open end of their table. 

“I’ll stay here, thanks,” Neil said.

Jean’s eyebrow twitched again. Under his breath, Andrew snorted.

Instantly, Riko flipped to aloof and condescending. Remaining seated, he looked Neil over and found him lacking. “You gave up your right to any authority the moment your mother and you fled like cowards. Kevin,” black eyes turned in his direction, “haven’t you trained your dog how to sit?”

Yet standing, Kevin looked as if Riko had pulled the rug from under his feet, set it aflame, and threw it out a window.

Behind them, crisp anger mingled with waves of fear.

“He’s still working on the housebreaking,” Neil drawled with an incredible impression of someone whose heart wasn’t picking up, “one step at a time, you know how it goes.”

“I understand you’re used to running wild, but they say it’s been over a month since you’ve arrived. It didn’t take Jean that long to learn the ropes.”

Jean didn’t add his two cents. He wasn’t expected to.

Andrew didn’t have to look back to know that in the silence to follow, Neil was doing his best to eye Jean without looking too concerned.

“He’s your sentinel?”

“He’s my companion.”

“I didn’t ask you,” Neil replied, and Kevin at last snapped back into the present to tell Neil to _mind his tone,_ “I asked him.”

“He is,” Jean finally spoke, “and we’ve the most successful record of any national operative. If you weren’t so full of yourself, maybe Kevin would stop wasting his talents babysitting you.”

With a hand clutched to his chest and doleful look at Kevin, Neil gasped, “I’m arrogant? Why didn’t you tell me? I’d love to stop holding you back.”

“Neil,” Kevin growled, mouth snapping shut on the word to follow. It wasn’t spoken, but it was there, a sentiment often demanded but rarely directly voiced, the command poisoning the air between them: _behave._

“Neil?” Latching on and echoing it, Riko stood. “Is that some sort of cute nickname?”

“It’s a choice,” Neil threw back. “Something you obviously abhor. You ever wonder if you gave anyone half a chance, you’d be locked up and left to rot? The moment someone surpasses your record might give them the opportunity. Given your attitude, I’m sure there are plenty of people who wouldn’t ever fight forgetting you ever existed.”

Though not made of surprise, a breath ghosted from Andrew’s lungs.

Across the table, Jean held very, very still.

“Seven days,” Riko said, his smile pretty as a snake in the grass. “No. Five. Give me five days, and I’ll have him better trained than a month with you, Kevin.”

Whatever dream he’d have of Riko and him working side by side was, Andrew saw, crumbling apart. He’d pick up the pieces and delude himself into thinking it possible once Riko left, as he always did, but for right then, for that very moment, his world had narrowed into making sure Riko didn’t leave with too awful of an impression. It was an ugly look for him. Even if he _couldn’t_ act on the impulses, Andrew wondered -- would he go for Riko’s hands, or face?

Face, he decided. Anything to get that arrogant _one_ off his cheek. 

“Today was a bad day,” Kevin tried arguing. “You caught him at a bad time.”

“There are no bad days,” Jean said.

“Exactly,” Riko reaffirmed. “Five days. Five nights, even. It won’t interrupt your schedules at all -- in fact, I’ll speak with my uncle now.”

With a toothy smile for Neil and a faux sympathetic look for Kevin (and no look for Andrew), he turned for the door. Without a single gesture or word, Jean rose to follow.

A chaired overturned onto the floor. Andrew didn’t care. Neil would not be sleeping anywhere but with them, in their small cut of the world; of that he’d decided, and so it would be.

As it turned out, he needn’t have ruined the furniture. Someone beat him to Riko.

That person was Kevin, six-odd feet and two-hundred-and-fifty-plus pounds of tensed muscle, one dark hand fisted in Riko’s shirt collar and, in one smooth motion, shoving him back to the table.

Riko went. Riko went not from choice, but pure, unadulterated shock, stumbling back down into his chair.

Looking as if he wasn’t sure what he’d done and a little fearful of it himself, Kevin rocked back on his heels, lowered trembling hands to his sides, licked his lips, and, carefully, said, “That’s not necessary, Riko.”

It sounded as if he were feeling out the words. It sounded as if he didn’t like them, but didn’t have another option, and so gave in, reluctant but set.

Andrew, as a rule, did not like surprises. But every rule had an exception, and in this incident, he might have found one.

Barely a whisper for the unenhanced, but perfectly conversational for the rest, Riko asked, “What did you just say?”

Yes, this was very much an exception.

Under Riko’s gaze, however, Kevin lost his nerve: he took a small step back, and worked over in his mind how to apologize.

In the same voice Riko had used, Andrew derailed Kevin’s thought to say, “It’s well past curfew, Riko. You and Jean should be on your way.”

Riko’s eyes didn’t waver from Kevin’s, but the line of his shoulders stiffened. All at once, he seemed to become very aware that it was two against one, two well-rested and well-fed sentinels against one fresh from a long mission.

(They hadn’t even discussed the mission. _That_ was a first.)

(Honestly, Andrew could get used to it. A pity he wasn’t one for hope.)

“He’s wasting your potential. All this is wasting your potential. I thought this would mean we’d fight together again.” Riko told Kevin. 

A muscle in his clenched jaw jumped, but Kevin, for once, neither looked away nor replied. 

After a moment to confirm he wouldn’t receive a response, he said, “Apparently not,” and again, he stood. 

It felt like the start of something.

There hadn’t been a _start of something_ in so, so long.

Jean gave Neil an appraising look out of the corner of his eye, safely behind and out of Riko’s. He was the only one to look back.

The one to cause the silence interrupted it, his anxiety thick but determination stronger. 

He said: “We need to leave.” 

“Stop saying that.” Kevin replied at once, tired and worn, swaying once on spot before taking a few steps and dropping into the chair Riko had abandoned. “Stop thinking it. Stop acting like it, stop constantly-- Neil, fuck, you’re exhausting.”

“I’m serious. We should leave. We _could_ leave. You’re two of the strongest people here.” Ignoring him, Andrew made his way to their cabinets. The goods within were disappointingly bland and bare: healthy cereal with dried fruit, whole wheat bread, a pile of red potatoes. A jar of pre-made tomato sauce. A bottle of teriyaki sauce. Behind him, Neil continued pushing his revolution. “How can you bring someone like that into your home and not think something has to change?”

“That someone’s going to make your life a living hell,” Andrew said as he tried the fridge. On having no better luck amidst a carton of eggs and a few packages of raw meat, he went for the whole milk.

“That someone has been my confidante for over thirteen years,” Kevin said, by which he really meant, _my best friend and brother._ “And you spit in his face over one little comment. Of course he was angry.”

“Is he ever not like that?”

“Never.”

“Maybe if you also didn’t antagonize him, Andrew,” Kevin snapped, a brief flare of fire before the night’s rocky happenings smothered them out. Slumping further, he sighed and dropped his face into his broad hands. Muffled, he said, “You picked a worthless fight here, Neil. This isn’t the hill you want to die on.”

“As far as I could tell, he wanted to drag me off for a torture session,” Neil muttered, his shoulder pressed hard against the hallway wall. “I’m fine with fighting against that. Is that what he did to his companion? Torture until he forgot he was a person?”

“Re-education,” Andrew corrected. “Not torture. Not on paper.”

“Same difference.”

“It wouldn’t have happened,” Kevin said. “You’re passing the tests. You’re learning. Your attitude’s the only issue. The Master wouldn’t jeopardize the rest for that.”

Silence. In it: _they’ve done worse for less,_ from one first-hand witness and one cynic.

Kevin’s green eyes peeked between his fingers. He hissed, “ _Stop_. Both of you.” 

“I’m going to bed,” Neil declared, turning sharply on a heel and disappearing again into the bedroom. This time, the lights clicked on before the door shut.

Finishing the milk straight from the carton, Andrew ignored Kevin’s pining look toward the closed door as well as the fact that both of them paused for a moment to track Neil’s progress from threshold to dresser. 

Andrew broke it purposefully by tossing the milk carton and making his way to the shower.

Kevin would have to figure it out for himself where he stood. In the meantime, Andre was positive they’d need to work double-time to keep Neil in one piece.

  


* * *

  


Nothing happened the following day, though Jean’s hours in the weight room coincided with theirs. 

He didn’t speak to them and he didn’t look their way. They extended the same courtesy, mostly; Neil wouldn’t stop stealing glances in between reps, but really, telling him to stop would have been absolutely counter-productive.

That night he asked, “Did he have a limp? Is it permanent?”

“Moreau always has something wrong with him,” Andrew replied. “On mission or off.”

“Not usually on mission,” Kevin amended for him, eyes averted. “But otherwise. Yes.”

Neil chewed his tongue and dropped it.

  


* * *

  


They were an elite fighting force. They were top of the line. Their skillsets were worth thousands, the serum in their blood worth millions. They ran themselves ragged to train, day and day out, and though they rarely heard it, their betters expected much of them. The American nation at large might not know their specific designation or backgrounds, but they served it well from the shadows. They were rewarded in incredible benefits for them and any immediate family, as well as a sizable retirement pension and, as Kathy was happy to say, an amazing experience with a variety of people in a wide number of locations. 

(They pulled most of their recruitment from the military. Kathy didn’t often say that.)

They were a mysterious force fighting for what the papers swore to be right.

They took jobs from highest bidders - they weren’t really government, not at the core, though their ties ran deep - but never, they swore, at the expense of their own or the innocent.

A discovery he made himself and, in truth, one of the most important notes to add was: they were not morning people. 

At least, not the one Neil had been lucky enough to be chained to.

“I thought you weren’t supposed to need as much sleep. And yelling isn’t working,” he groaned to Andrew, who was watching with a bowl of blueberry yogurt in hand as Neil attempted to wake Kevin. “Aren’t your ears super sensitive?”

“Mine are. In that state,” Andrew said, spoon waggled in Neil’s direction with a distinct lack of care (probably because his ears were bothered by Neil’s yelling, and also because it wasn’t his turn to clean the carpets come their next free day), “he’s a rock. Rocks haven’t any ears.”

“Thanks for the geology lesson.”

“Anytime. We’re very concerned with your education here, after all.”

Impatience built into a tapping foot, Neil contemplated the snoozing sentinel.

This wasn’t the first morning he’d needed to rouse Kevin. It wasn’t close to the thirtieth time Andrew had probably needed to rouse him, either, but Andrew made it clear in the first three days that waking Kevin up was now Neil’s job. They were on a _schedule._ They didn’t have time for this. Worst of all, Kevin never failed to complain to Neil afterward as if it was his fault for not waking him up sooner. 

He had an alarm clock! It woke Andrew up! Why not Kevin?

Fed up with shoulder-shakes and prods, Neil latched onto the edge of Kevin’s pillow, pulled it from under his head, and smacked it down onto his face.

Kevin, at last, woke, sputtering and protesting. Neil huffed at him to get up, backed off, realized his protests were turning quieter and quieter and sleepier and sleepier, and returned to give him another thwap to the face.

Rinse, repeat, until Kevin was at last up and - as Neil thought - cursing Neil for letting him sleep in so much.

“This is ridiculous,” Neil grumbled as they waited near the door for Kevin to get dressed and double-check his bag. “They should give me a dog whistle. Bet that’d wake him up.”

“I’d kill you,” Andrew promised him.

“Sure,” Neil agreed, amiable to the idea of Andrew over Riko.

When Kevin emerged with his bag over his back and his hair stuck up funny on one side, neither of them informed him. Five minutes past five, which was late enough to sink Kevin into unhappy silence but not late enough for anything to truly be affected, they left.

First was cardio. Second was weights. With two long days between their last meeting, Neil finagled their work-out routine to bring him and Kevin next to Jean. Although the other companion remained stiff and unfriendly, he didn’t hesitate to answer what harmless questions Neil had-- especially, it turned out, when all three of them spoke in French. 

Neil tried to turn the conversation to Jean’s experience as a companion, but every answer was textbook perfect. It frustrated him enough that Kevin called their weight training early (citing their late start), collected Andrew, and moved them out of the gym.

Third was the obstacle course and gun range. Until noon, Kevin and Neil coordinated runs and drills while Andrew squared off in the ring with another unmatched sentinel, Jeremy Knox.

Then lunch.

During lunch, Kevin searched for and found Riko. He was given the cold shoulder when he attempted to merge their groups, and, after Neil realized who Kevin intended to interrupt their usual seating arrangement for, guffawed, turned and left for Laila and Alvarez’s table. Eventually, as if on a string, Kevin and Andrew followed.

“The hell put a twist in his knickers?” Alvarez asked Neil. They didn’t typically talk during lunch: for one, Laila and Alvarez didn’t seem to care for anyone in Evermore aside from each other and the other transfer from their old department, Knox. For two, when Knox sat with them (which he usually did, though he seemed to have friends in every branch), he facilitated discussion enough with Kevin that the rest didn’t have to say anything. For three, all five sat at the same table more by virtue of no one else wanting to mingle with the paired sentinels - or Andrew - out of jealousy, contempt or some mix of the two.

Laila once told him in her absent-minded voice that Kevin Day had been the darling of the Laboratories’ faculty, right up there next to Riko. Ever since Riko found his companion and Kevin’s performance was found lacking in comparison, however, he’d fallen step by step to the wayside.

She didn’t think he took it well. She concluded by telling Neil that he must have represented Kevin’s ticket back to the top of the ladder.

Neil didn’t need to be told that to know it.

It took Neil a moment to follow the jerk of her chin to where Riko sat, relaxed and unconcerned. He didn’t seem to suffer from the paired sentinel issue. Maybe it really was more a product of Andrew’s presence than anything else.

(He still hadn’t gotten the full story on what made people shoot Andrew looks of mingled fear and disgust.)

“He’s not usually like that?” Neil finally asked in reply.

“Aw, hell no,” Alvarez said. She was gruff and full of bristling personality. It made her approachable in Neil’s mind, but also as stand-out as a sore thumb in Evermore. Knox and Laila, truthfully, weren’t so different. “Him and Kevin are usually real buddy-buddy whenever they’re both at headquarters. This is real new.” She paused. “This is connected to you, huh.”

“Guess so,” Neil offered, neutral.

She eyed him.

“Listen, kid,” she said, which was a bit insulting - they were definitely not far off in age. Five years, max. She was so casual with herself, too - like Jean, she’d been part of the common infantry before Laila had found her, and as far as he knew, had a well-adjusted and proud family back home. “If you pissed off Riko Moriyama enough that he’s not talking with Kevin, you’re going to want to watch your back.”

That was infinitely more annoying than the nickname.

At his side, he saw Andrew’s nostrils flare and his eyes move to Neil. It was a creepy thing to notice, but it wasn’t even close to the first time - him and Kevin constantly redirected their attention to him at the slightest change. Neil told himself he was growing used to it, but really, he just needed to figure out how to use it.

He said, unimpressed, “I’ve been told.”

“By who?”

She had him there. “Riko,” he admitted.

Her eyebrows shot up and she whistled, low and revenant. Laila, on her side, also looked over, though she masked it as an excuse to nab a carrot off her plate.

“You’re screwed, kid,” she told him.

He shrugged one shoulder and refocused on his meal. He’d been fucked since Kevin ran him down.

(Mostly, he missed the sky.)

  


* * *

  


Test after test after test, he passed. Test after test after test, Kevin’s cracks began to show.

Always harsh, he managed to be an even greater critic of Neil and Andrew’s forms. He had no time for himself or Neil to chat with Jean or Alveraz or even Knox; he was a bundle of nerves, a jug of gasoline waiting for a spark, and he wound himself tighter and tighter as absolutely nothing but their daily routine happened. 

Riko continued to ignore them.

Five days after the talk with Alvarez, hoping to shove something down his gullet before passing out, Neil opened the fridge, squinted in and then straightened to ask Andrew, directly, “Have you been eating all the yogurts again?”

“Yes,” he answered, no shame or guilt or attempt at redemption.

“Are you serious?” Kevin cut in, sudden and too loud. Neil startled, his knuckles whitening on the fridge door. Andrew, meanwhile, didn’t so much as look at him. “Andrew, the supplier’s office only opens on day three. We’re going to have to start buying calcium tablets if you keep eating the dairy.”

“The tablets are disgusting,” Andrew finally said, the slide of his words somehow threatening.

That wasn’t new. 

No, it was. It was new. It just hadn’t ever, in Neil’s experience, been directed at Kevin. Medical staff, their teachers who preferred to teach a pair over a trio and attempted to passive aggressively shuffle them into agreement, other troops -- Andrew exuded hostility toward them in the manner any large predator set its natural prey’s hackles up. Even if he never showed teeth, the knowledge of possibility was there.

It was, frankly, amazing he hadn’t been curbed before. But then, rather like Neil, he passed all his tests; unlike Neil, he didn’t give attitude to those who didn’t step out of line to receive it.

Tension hadn’t been there fifteen seconds before, but within a blink and a breath and Neil closing the fridge door, it crashed like a wave through the room, electric and intangible and positively terrible. 

“There’s three of us here,” Kevin was saying, voice still too loud. “You need to think of the group.”

“I think we’ll survive,” Andrew replied. “It’s just yogurt.”

The urge to leave, to stretch his legs and run, returned full-force. Because he couldn’t -- too many days, too many to keep track of, too much time flying by without anything to count it but how many times his head hit the pillow - he did the next best thing, and made for the empty bedroom.

“Stop,” lashed out to halt his progress. It made him want to run farther, set fire ants under his skin and restlessness in his lungs, brought to mind other men who said the same, but --- he stopped. Behind him, Kevin stood, his hands flat on the table and tension rippling through his body, so scared even Neil could see it. “Quit _hiding._ We aren’t going to hurt you, for fuck’s sake.”

 _Not intentionally,_ he thought, and a few things more.

He didn’t move or reply.

“Sit down, Kevin,” Andrew said, cool and collected and definitely, definitely warning.

“You can’t tell me it doesn’t get to you,” he snarled. “He finds his backbone at the worst times. He still won’t change with us in the room or stand within reach-- don’t think I didn’t notice.” Like that, he turned his gaze and a jabbed finger in Neil’s direction. “Soon, there’s going to be a series of underwater puzzles you’ll need to solve. We need to practice at the pool. You can’t wear a full-bodied suit in the pool.”

Now cold, Andrew replied, “I won’t repeat myself.”

A little wild-eyed, Kevin stared at Andrew. 

Then he turned and drove his fist into a wall. It, as it was designed to, held up. The lack of change agitated Kevin further, though he had to shake out his fist after. Pin prick eyes roved around the kitchen, skipping over Andrew and Neil as if they weren’t even there, finding - probably - enemies and monsters in every nook and cranny.

When he went after the chair for being breakable and accessible, Neil slipped into the bedroom and closed the door behind him. It wouldn’t really keep them out, and that knowledge kept him from truly calming his heart, but it was better than another second stuck in close quarters.

And, for this particular night, he much, much prefered it to watching as well as listening to Andrew forcibly containing Kevin’s outburst. 

As far as he knew, neither of the sentinels made it to bed. As far as he knew, they never discussed a single thing. Watching the door in panic and paranoia kept him up a while longer even after the crashing and breaking glass ceased, but eventually, Neil fell unconscious. 

When he woke, the morning proved that while the walls were super strength proof, everything within it in was not.

(Aside from livid bruises along Kevin’s right arm and Andrew’s swelling eye, however, they managed to keep in one piece.)

(The same could not be said for the fruit bowl, the table, or attempting any conversation during waking hours.)

  


* * *

  


Somehow, Neil ended up being the one to make a request for a new table, new chairs, maintenance for cracked cabinets, and a new fridge.

After he told her for what room, the woman didn’t seem as surprised as he’d have expected. She made a comment about how remarkable it was his normal self wasn’t dead or missing a limb, which he took in silence.

“You’re an unfriendly one, aren’t you?” She clicked her tongue at him after accepting back the forms. 

A lot crowded in his mouth to be said to that. He decided on: “I didn’t get much sleep.”

  


* * *

  


The evening proved that Evermore’s employees weren’t as large in number as they appeared, and as with all closed communities, gossip traveled fast.

Paperwork for new items submitted promptly in the morning-- Kevin couldn’t have slept, at least, given his being awake when Neil finally stepped out-, they’d finished much of their schedule far ahead of time without any talk or acknowledged tension getting in the way. Thirty-four minutes before curfew, they headed as a trio back to their apartment. If there would’ve been a possibility for anything close to a breather once they reached it, Neil would’ve been happier. As it stood, though the supplier said they’d have the broken furniture cleaned out by that night and the new installed by the next, it was bound to be as exhaustingly tense as the day.

One of the unmatched sentinels - the same one that had been with Tetsuji - and five of his bulkier friends trundled past them in the narrow hallway.

One clipped Neil in the shoulder, an accident for all intents and purposes. 

“Oi,” that one called, spinning around and looming, a textbook study in intimidation that Neil didn’t slow for but Andrew and Kevin glanced back at, “watch where you’re walking, brat.” Then, when he continued to be ignored, he took a step forward, reached for Neil’s shoulder, and -- _snarled_ , his wrist caught by a much shorter blond.

“Are you sure you want to press your luck?” Andrew asked, voice sugar sweet.

Neil finally stopped to look back.

Everyone knew the sentinels in the building. By the frozen anger on the man’s face, he recognized Andrew, and he wasn’t entirely sure he _did_ want to press his luck.

The other sentinel did.

“Lay off, Minyard, fuck. It was an accident.” He measured up to Kevin’s height but doubled in bulk, and he planted his feet as if he were ready to step in for his buddy in a moment. Most likely, he was just raring for a fight. “Day, call off the attack dog and get your bitch to apologize, and we’ll be on our way.”

In a voice Neil recognized as one Kevin directed at him but ramped to a thousand degrees, equal parts disbelieving and an affronted _you’re being unprofessional_ , “Excuse me?” 

The man with the caught wrist found strength in his numbers, and yanked for his hand back with a growled, “Let go, psycho.”

As with the night before, matters escalated quickly from there.

The sentinel said, “You heard me, Day.” 

His friends fanned out behind him, one’s hand edging toward a sheath on his side.

One sickening crunch, and the man in Andrew’s grasp screamed.

The hall erupted into chaos. The sentinel drew back a fist and went for Andrew; Kevin intercepted him, knee driving into the man’s gut; Andrew dropped the one he had for the one with the knife and three more besides; Neil backed up from the violence, feet begging him to run but unwilling to leave before seeing this out. 

It was just as well: the way he would’ve ran filled with calls for the brawlers to stop, uniformed security breaking into the squabble with electrified batons and shouted orders to _stand down! **Now,** boys!_

One of them assumed by proximity that Neil was involved, and body-checked him into a wall, rough fingers pulling his arms up and grinding his wrists together. That woman’s head turned from Neil (who forcibly kept himself still, tense but compliant, always tense but compliant, always biding his time, he wanted to _run_ ) to check on her fellows, a few more commands and orders given -- but then she, against all logical reason, choked.

Grip loosened on Neil, she stumbled away with her hand pressed to her side. In her place came Andrew, his hand and borrowed knife coated in red, body unharmed aside from the healing bruise Kevin had given him the day before. 

“They’re going to try to make me regret that,” he told Neil as he looked him over. 

“You probably will,” Neil answered, or whispered, voice dropping to a pitch just for Andrew to catch. 

The grin he received was all unfriendly teeth. “Doubt it. I never do.” A quick step forward and low murmur of, “You need to watch Kevin for me.”

A response didn’t immediately pop into Neil’s head-- and then even if one had, his chance for it was gone.

The time taken for the exchange cost him his own freedom, a baton struck between his shoulders and, with a charge that left the stench of burned cloth so thick it curled in the back of Neil’s throat, made him stumble. He turned with the knife brandished, the grin even less smile than before -- and was jumped from behind by another guard, another jolt singing into the air. The knife shook free from his hand, and he stumbled to his knees.

Anything less than a sentinel, Neil was sure, would have been dead.

Though Andrew was out of commission to defend himself and the other sentinel snarled over him whenever Kevin attempted to speak, justice was dealt then and there: the blame lay with the one who brought a knife to a fist fight, and even more, on the one who apparently was so unstable he’d harmed his roommate and fucked up their apartment. Maybe he was jealous over the companion. It wouldn’t be unexpected. Fucking ticking time bomb, Andrew Minyard.

 _No,_ Kevin insisted, grasping straws to keep his cool and coveted rationality, avoiding blurting his own guilt by a hair, _no, that isn’t relevant. That’s completely unrelated, ma’am, he didn’t --_

 _Give him time to cool off,_ the other sentinel said, louder and abruptly reasonable. _See how well he behaves then. He’s got a record, doesn’t he? How many strikes is this?_

 __It didn’t escape Neil’s notice how Kevin paled.

Or how he neatly broke down once they started dragging Andrew away. The calm broke; for the second time in as many days, Kevin lost his cool, sagging in the guard’s arms and looking for all the world like a dog abandoned in a vicious thunderstorm.

“Relax, Day,” the woman who Andrew had stabbed said, her hand pressed hard against her side but eyes clear, “he’ll be back before you know it. They wouldn’t scrap him after all the effort they put in, whether or not we’d all be better off with him gone. -- Men, move them along. All of you are on lockdown for the next twenty four hours. There’s nothing else left to do here.”

  


* * *

  


They didn’t talk about it.

Kevin spent the day off buried in his bed, unresponsive to anything Neil tried. It didn’t seem healthy. It didn’t seem like coping. 

Then again, he probably didn’t think of it as a _day off_. 

In any case, after he’d stooped to offering to make Kevin one of his god-awful green smoothies and still received no response, he’d grown fed up with the man’s silence and left him alone in the dark bedroom. 

Foolish as it felt, Neil spent his time pacing in the empty kitchen. The ruined furniture was gone, but they had yet to replace any of it it. As time slowed to a crawl, Neil admitted to himself that they were going to wait another day to do it.

Pacing grew maddening. He stopped. He did as many exercises as he could in a small, enclosed area with absolutely no equipment.

Eventually his arms refused to push him up one more time, and then he had to stop that, too.

_Fuck._

They’d taken their books along with the furniture. He wasn’t sure if that was from a mess-up on the movers’ end or intentional on the guards’ part.

The microwave’s clock told him it’d been nine hours since he woke. Two P.M.

He reviewed what he knew of the base. He reviewed what happened the day before, and the day before that. He scratched a rough layout of Evermore’s halls into the wall with a butterknife. 

Another glance at the clock. Four-twenty-seven P.M.

The bedroom door opened, and the bathroom door shut. Three minutes later, the process reversed.

The butterknife rattled on the tile as he dropped it and stood.

“Where’s Andrew?” He asked the immobile lump of blanket and day-old clothing.

Nothing.

“Kevin.”

Nothing.

“The guards were unusually close.” Nothing. “Theobald’s group was surprisingly well-armed. And persistent.” 

Nothing. Still, nothing.

“Whose fault was that?”

“Mine,” whispered out of the fabric. Neil frowned at it. “And yours.”

Neil more than frowned - he opened his mouth, took a breath ---

“For denying Riko what he wanted,” Kevin continued with. Out of respect for the fact that he’d go insane if he had to last another second pacing the kitchen in silence, Neil gave him the floor. “We’re lucky he hasn’t decided to do something more permanent. Andrew will be back before long.”

“From where?” Neil asked again, repressing the dread.

The blankets shifted. Black hair peeked out first, followed by tired eyes. For someone who’d spent the whole day in bed, he didn’t look rested at all.

“Solitary, probably,” he said, voice detached. “Re-education, maybe.”

Oh. Of course. 

Neil stood there a while longer, fingers curled into Kevin’s metal bed frame. He had the top bunk to Neil’s bottom - it wasn’t anything more fancy than what could have been found in a million superstores across the nation, but at least it was still standing. 

When fingers edged out from the unpleasantly green colored blanket to rest over his knuckles, Neil didn’t jump, but he did tense. Kevin didn’t move beyond that, however, and one silent minute stretched into another that bordered companionable (or: equally miserable). He relaxed, piece by piece. 

“Andrew wasn’t supposed to be part of this project,” Kevin murmured to him, his eyes closed and fingers warmed. “His brother was the one they’d cleared; Andrew was declared mentally unfit. But they’re identical twins. No one knew he’d taken Aaron’s place until it was too late to halt the procedure. He wasn’t supposed to survive it.”

Neil asked, “Aaron, or Andrew?”

Green cracked open, a sliver of dark emerald. “Either.”

Oh.

Neil kept quiet, turning that over for all it could mean. Combined with how Andrew acted around Kevin and him, how quick he’d been with the knife despite knowing the repercussions -- it gave him something new to think about.

It was obvious Andrew didn’t have any affection for Evermore Laboratories, but it his loyalties ran that shallow, that was better news than Neil could have imagined.

As he drew back out of his head, he found Kevin watching him. For once, he didn’t tell Neil to stop thinking it.

When he finally drew back to give his legs a break, hand sliding out from under Kevin’s, Kevin sighed and retreated back into his covers.

  


* * *

  


“Sir, he’s my patient. If an evaluation needs to be conducted, his primary doctor should be the one to do it.”

“Dr. Dobson, your expertise in this matter is a little… wanting.”

“Dr. Proust, with all due respect, our qualifications are the same.”

“It’s a matter of experience.”

“Dr. Proust did support him through his rougher years.”

“Perhaps it wasn’t the years that were rough so much as his care, sir.”

“What might you be implying, Dr. Dobson?”

A pause.

“I only ask I see him immediately after release. Otherwise, my records will contain an unsightly gap.”

“A perfectly reasonable request. In the meantime, Dr. Proust, please. We had high hopes for Minyard. It’d be good to see them returned.”

  


* * *

  


A few days prior, Neil had been cleared for solo firearm operation. No longer did Kevin have to hover over his shoulder as he practiced his aim; now, Kevin took up his own weapon a booth over. Their instructor loitered mostly with Kevin, who was in general a much more attentive and easy to get along with learner.

Though he wouldn’t have struggled to hit the broadside of a barn and had some experience, Neil was no natural-born sharpshooter. Through hours, he kept the bullets mostly on target at close range; through more hours, he _hit_ medium range; this day, they set up long range and swapped his gun for something of a bit higher caliber. It wasn’t familiar in his hands, but it wasn’t difficult to know you were supposed to point and shoot.

There wasn’t a scope, so he closed one eye, braced his arm for recoil, lined up as best he could, and curled his finger on the trigger.

The target didn’t so much as wobble in a breeze.

The gun kicked too hard. No bullet left its muzzle. Neil had a moment to feel more than think _that’s not right_ , and then his palm felt as if someone had stabbed a hot iron through it.

Even with his headset to muffle noise, the gun’s barrel ripping itself apart cracked through him; he sprung back with a curse as hot metal dented the booth’s walls and tore through the thin tin ceiling. Smoke rose from the rifle’s chamber, and he ran shaky hands down his shirtfront, staring in confusion as liquid glistened in regulation black.

The booth was locked. The booth became unlocked just as he tore off his headset, Kevin crowding into the doorway instantly, the instructor visibly concerned over his shoulder.

Almost too soft to be heard, Kevin swore as he gently took Neil’s hand and turned it over to survey the damage. It didn’t hurt, _yet._ It was full of too much blood to see what was all wrong.

“It must’ve been jammed,” the instructor said, far away and, to Neil, utterly unimportant.

He hadn’t fired the gun. It should have been cleaned since its last use. 

There was no way a bullet lodged in its chamber was anything but intentional.

“I’m sorry, sir,” Kevin said, louder and icily stable, “I’m afraid the lesson will have to be cut short. We need to report to the medical ward.”

The instructor balked. Changes in schedule were not common or dealt well with in Evermore. “Surely he can find his own way.”

Kevin didn’t deign that with a response. He took Neil by the shoulder, straightened to his full height, and made for the exit.

Beyond the token protest and question about rescheduling, the instructor didn’t get in his way.

  


* * *

  


This time around, Dr. Wymack couldn’t convince Kevin to wait outside the room. He barely bothered to, especially when Neil didn’t back him up with his own voice.

Kevin spent the entire operation standing at perfect attention at the door, worried eyes trained on Neil as they laid him back and stuffed him full of painkillers. They weren’t equipped for an immediate operation as delicate as one with the hand, but as Abby cleaned the hole and Dr. Wymack examined it, it was declared tentatively stable after four stitches. As long as he didn’t use the hand for the next two weeks, it might even hold. 

“We don’t have weeks,” Kevin said. It was the first thing he’d said since they’d arrived.

“You’re going to have to make weeks,” Dr. Wymack replied. “I’ll write to your instructors. I’ll write to Master Moriyama himself. If he doesn’t rest his hand, there’s a possibility he’ll lose motor function. Wouldn’t you rather have two weeks off than a lifetime?”

Kevin didn’t reply.

Neil said, into the quiet, “What can I do?”

“Clean it daily. Watch for inflammation. Any pus, visit my office. Come back in a week for a check-up, and then again to see if we can get the stitches out.”

After a moment, Neil nodded.

“Jammed gun at the range?” Abby reaffirmed with Kevin. He nodded without hesitation. Her lips thinned, but at the end, she only marked it in Neil’s thin chart.

“I’ll send a commendation on your reaction time, too, Kevin,” Dr. Wymack said as they stood to go. “And crisis management. Sentinels have a track record of overreacting to their companions’ slightest injuries; your behavior here was impressive.”

“Thank you, Doctor,” Kevin replied, short and curt. He didn’t say anything else as he waited for Neil to join him at the door and, finally, led the way out.

  


* * *

  


A bum hand limited Neil to everything but cardio, untimed maintenance drills and textbooks. As Dr. Wymack promised, his tests were postponed, though his instructors gave Kevin grief for it.

Andrew continued to be missing. They asked no one about his whereabouts. It wouldn’t help, Kevin said. 

Kevin continued to stand (or just plain _exist_ ) closer and closer, until his arm or shoulder or hip brushed against Neil everywhere they went. Neil really couldn’t tell if it was for his protection or Kevin’s comfort -- either way, it wasn’t as maddening as it might have been. They began to move in tandem, a grim unit determined to make their way through Evermore’s impersonal halls.

Ever gracious, Riko came to collect them at lunch the day after the gun incident. 

Kevin glanced his way, but just as quickly ducked his head and stared at his tray. 

When that didn’t discourage him from talking about how much better Kevin looked without his rabid hanger-on, Neil, who hadn’t even acknowledged him, looked up and behind Riko to Jean.

“Does he ever pull his head out of his ass? Or does he always spew shit from his mouth?”

Jean’s eyebrows jumped to his hairline.

Alvarez laughed so hard she choked on her milk. Laila, at her side, smiled and tsked, “That’s an unfortunately vivid image. Now I can’t unsee it.”

Kevin’s head shot up and, stumbling, he backtracked with, “Riko, he didn’t--”

“-- I did mean that,” Neil cut in, eyes not once wavering from Riko’s. “The only thing worthwhile about you, Riko, is the pricey serum in your blood. I’d ask what you thought you were doing, but Kevin and my progress must be making your tiny brain feel threatened. What _will_ happen when you’re not the best? I’m sure that thought must keep you up at night. 

“And just so you know?” He added, head cocked and voice aloof. “He will pass you up. No matter what you do, he’ll always be better than you.”

Eyes darting between the four at the table, Riko’s lip curled, his cheeks colored pink.

“You’ll regret that,” he said.

“I doubt it,” Neil replied, for himself and Andrew.

One more sharp look at Kevin, who only stared back, and he turned on a heel and stormed away. Behind his back and before scrambling to catch up, Jean shot Neil a quick almost-smile.

After they were gone back across the cafeteria, Kevin set his elbows on the table and buried his face in his hands.

Again, he didn’t ask Neil to cut it out. Neil considered that a step in the right direction.

“Holy shit,” Alvarez whispered as she wiped milk from her nose. “You’re a scrawny piece of shit, kid, but you’ve got balls. Babe, can you believe that?”

“I’m impressed,” Laila said, mostly to Kevin. “A boring guy like you matched with a firecracker.”

“Hey,” Neil piped in, “I’m better than a firecracker.”

Kevin made a low, unhappy, not entirely disagreeing noise into his hands.

“I’ll say,” Alvarez said, not without appreciation. 

Ten minutes later when Knox finally made his way to their table, three out of four were still happy enough for him to ask, “Oh, er. What’d I miss? I caught Jean walking a bounce in his step, too, and Riko looking angrier than a hornet in a can - is that related?”

Reminded of the incident all over again, Alvarez tossed her head back and cackled.

At the end of the table, Neil caught Kevin’s mutter of, “I miss alcohol.”

It was the first time he’d heard Kevin admit to being less than pleased with Evermore’s strict regulations. Barbed as it was, Neil counted that as a victory, too.

  


* * *

  


That night wasn’t as fun as that noon.

When Kevin refused to so much as look at him and stormed to the bathroom, Neil sighed loud and noisily through his nose and didn’t bother hiding how unimpressed he was as he dressed for bed. Communal showers and no choice given after exercise meant everyone in their morning class had seen him without a shirt, but that didn’t mean he liked it. And, really, even if the identity his mother had worked so hard to keep secret was blown wide open, old habits died hard.

As such, when knuckles rapped on the bedroom door and Kevin’s voice drifted in to say, “Neil. Cleaning,” he jerked what counted as his sleep shirt down _fast._

Kevin still avoided his eyes, his jaw clenched shut, but he kept his touch light around Neil’s injured hand. Technically, Neil could easily run it under water and apply disinfectant himself, but for whatever reason, Kevin demanded he saw to it. He probably didn’t think Neil would do a good enough job. He seemed happy to think that of everything else.

At the end of this night’s ritual, however, he didn’t immediately let go. 

Old nervousness prickled at Neil’s arms, but he shoved it down and waited Kevin out.

“I barely remember the last time I zoned,” Kevin muttered. He always spoke so much quieter in the apartment - Neil had yet to figure out why, theorized that it had to do with what counted as typical volume for Neil must have been a shout for Kevin, only that a low volume usually corresponded to a more honest Kevin. “It was auditory. When you were sick.”

Unfortunately, his honesty wasn’t always the best. Neil made an ugly noise. “I’d rather go to bed, Kevin. Leave work for tomorrow.”

He still cradled his (stinging, the wound unhappy with the treatment) hand.

He looked-- like he wanted more. Neil’s nerves returned, a little different from before but no less uncomfortable. 

One deep breath in and slow breath out later, and the look passed. 

“We could be the best,” Kevin whispered.

Neil didn’t reply.

Even quieter, he looked up to Neil and swore, “We _will_ be.”

Neil’s plans didn’t have him in Evermore long enough to be commended for anything, let alone to be ranked at the top.

But for Kevin’s resolve -- for the steps it took him to reach that, for the gain it signified, for what it meant for a sadist and a company that had done its best at stamping out whatever individuality Kevin Day had been born with - he let his mouth curve into a smile.

  


* * *

  


When Neil thought he didn’t want to be commended for anything, he supposed Dr. Wymack could be an exception.

Apparently his admiration for Kevin’s control reached _someone_ important, as within days of having his stitches pulled, a courier came to their door post-curfew and informed them of their first field mission.

It wasn’t anything grand by Evermore standards, Kevin told him. Barely three days long, the city was close, and it truly amounted to nothing more than a forensics run. Newly commissioned sentinels would be able to work jobs like this.

Neil didn’t care about the work.

Neil cared about the big, bold DEPLOYMENT TO BOSTON stamped on the front, and the fact they were _leaving._

  


* * *

  


Kevin worried.

About a lot of things. To his disgust and disquiet, he found he was becoming a fairly anxious person. 

He worried about Riko every day. He worried about Andrew every night. He worried about Neil, always.

Acknowledging it was supposed to be the first step to controlling it, but then Riko watched him every lunch period, Andrew wasn’t back, and Neil was trying not to look like he was planning to make a break for it while most definitely planning just that.

He worried, too, about his reputation and recognition and pure skill, but -- as he allocated quite a bit of worry to the individuals in his life, his free time to worry about his career became compromised.

In order to compensate for this gross negligence, he attempted to police Neil’s progress better and ran himself harder. It sort of worked. Well.

They were deployed, anyway.

The mission wasn’t anything: they’d found the main base for a drug ring the local authorities had been attempting to root out for years, but it’d been emptied of people and possessions and they were once again at their rope’s end. They’d paid the Masters a pretty penny to bring in their most expensive sniffer dogs, thus why Kevin and Neil were sent out.

They were given their living arrangements (a spare bedroom in the police chief’s house, as it turned out), two packs with barely enough clothes, money or food to last three days in Boston, no emergency ammunition or firearms, and the barest bones of kevlar and armor that Kevin had seen since his days as an inductee. 

They also clapped Neil’s ankle in a tracking bracelet before they left. If it lost contact with a heat source that matched Neil’s, it would explode and take off whatever limb closest to it. If it went outside the range - a very narrow, very long strip of land that included the police chief’s house and extended no farther than a block from the uncovered headquarters - it would pulse with electricity until Neil’s vitals registered as unconscious.

At least, that was what they told them. 

It didn’t have the capabilities to explode, Kevin was fairly sure. The electricity was more likely.

He didn’t tell Neil that. It would only make him worry more.

Besides. Tracer or not, this was good for Neil.

 _Incredible_ , even. Career-wise and heart-wise. They took a helicopter from the Laboratories that were situated in the southern Appalachians (to this day, Kevin wasn’t entirely surely where; to be fair, he didn’t try hard to figure it out) to Boston with a team of two well-armored but similarly disarmed women. Helicopters were typically nightmares of cacophonous noise and too much visual input after weeks or months underground, but for the first time in years, Kevin thought he had an idea of what it was like to rely on one’s body to keep functioning no matter the circumstances.

Better than that, even. Better than anything his memory could recall. By design, he was all power; with Neil as the focus, the world was at their fingertips.

No wonder Riko had gotten ahead of himself when he’d found Jean. This was -- at the risk of being repetitive -- _incredible._

For the hour and a half they spent in the air, Neil plastered himself to the window, and Kevin narrowly resisted plastering himself against Neil. 

Their boots lined up. That would have to be enough.

They arrived before nine in the morning. Immediately, they were escorted by vehicle to the investigation site, and immediately, Kevin set to work.

(He caught Neil murmur, _it’s July_ , swallow, and add, _seventh_ , a little reverent and little broken but then he was silent as stone under the officer’s curious gazes.)

Officially Neil didn’t need to do much more than exist (and he did that very well) for the purpose of this mission, but Kevin kept him moving through the abandoned apartment complex, instructing him to take notes or hold that or hold this or-- _please, sir, if you wouldn’t mind stepping back,_ words from Kevin’s mouth because he saw how Neil shut down the moment police arrived and puzzled out neatly that sending him to talk with their more incompetent officers was a bad idea.

“Why’s he got a tracking bracelet?” That officer asked not ten minutes later, still loitering inconveniently next to a pile of shredded cardboard. Neil didn’t look up from the grate he was taking apart.

The boxes had traces of cocaine on them. Any test would have proved that. What a test couldn’t prove was a fair approximation of what had done the shredding from its tear pattern and any excess filaments, and, combined with other details around the complex, track how the cocaine went from here to wherever. 

Since Neil didn’t respond - he really hated cops, didn’t he? - Kevin took it upon himself to look at her. 

The officer quelled, hands up and palms out. “Just asking. Jeez. Didn’t think we hired a criminal, is all.”

“I need a pair of steel tweezers,” Kevin told him. “And five plastic tubs.”

“Aren’t those a pair of steel tweezers?” The officer asked him, gesturing at the pair in Kevin’s hand.

“I need another,” he stated, evenly.

“Go on, Smith,” another more competent officer threw in from the vague area of the bare-bones kitchen. “Go fetch the man some tweezers. There’s a convenience store down the block; check there.”

Smith left.

Kevin caught Neil’s amused snort just as he finished dismantling the grate. Since he’d finished his job, he didn’t snap at him to refocus.

“Sorry about her,” the officer from the kitchen called. Kevin sent a frown his way. He hadn’t finished his job. “She’s always been a ditz. Not sure how she got through the academy.”

“It’s fine, sir.”

He laughed. “Please, my first name’s fine. You’re staying at my house. My wife would have a fit if a guest called me ‘sir’ at the dinner table.”

Kevin mulled over a polite way to decline. In the silence, the officer stuck his head around the corner and smiled again. 

“Okay. If not that, how about Higgins?”

He was a kind man, Kevin thought. The smile suited him. The contract with the Moriyamas did not.

In any case, Kevin assented.

  


* * *

  


Maybe Neil’s anxiety was the source of Kevin’s anxiety. 

They finished all they could on the first day, though they missed Higgins’ wife’s dinner by five hours and didn’t take the ride to the police chief’s house until well after midnight. By then, it was sheer force of will keeping Neil upright: though the day wasn’t as rigorous as usual, he hadn’t slept well the night before from anticipation and nerves, and -- in truth -- the sheer jump in stimulus had to wear him out. Evermore was the pinnacle of order, in life and breath and deed. Not twenty-four hours out, and Kevin (though he’d deny it entirely) missed it.

The world was… messy. People were messy. Life was messy, but as Evermore proved, it didn’t have to be.

Preparation, regulation, mission objective. There didn’t have to be anything more complicated than that.

Neil didn’t think so. Though exhausted, he was the most relaxed Kevin had seen: half-lidded eyes tracked everything they passed, and he was - even taking out the intentional silences toward police - less prone to sarcasm or simmering anger. Evermore’s sterility clung to his armor and skin, but beneath that was something like…

_Something like what._

Kevin didn’t know. But it was new. It was healthy.

The wife, who’d apparently stayed up despite her husband’s warnings that they’d be late, reheated them the leftover pasta and meatballs and, the moment they were done, sent them through the quiet house to their room.

She mentioned the bed was a queen size, but there was only one. One of them could take her son’s old room, if they’d like.

Kevin declined for them.

The bed was big enough not to be an issue, anyway. Neil hesitated a moment, a brief burst of nerves, but exhaustion tampered it down and, barely taking the time to brush his teeth, pull off socks and a belt, he collapsed face-first onto his side. 

“We’ll be done by mid-afternoon tomorrow,” Kevin informed him. “Once the results from today’s findings return, I’m positive we’ll have a hot trail to send the police down. We’ll most likely be able to return early.”

He didn’t get an immediate reply. That was alright. He took time in brushing, flossing and dressing properly for bed.

“What if more evidence appeared?” Neil asked, head turned just enough for his voice not to be entirely muffled by a pillow.

The corners of Kevin’s mouth tugged down, his eyebrows pinched. “None will. We were thorough.”

“What if,” Neil insisted, quieter, “the tests were inconclusive?”

“Then we’d have to wait another day for them to be done again. It’d be a waste of time.”

No longer on the edge of sleep, Neil watched him. The room had a lovely lace curtain that did nothing to keep out the streetlight; caught in its glow, Neil’s eyes gleamed. 

Rather, they accused. 

Kevin, slowly, sank down on his side of the bed. He didn’t know what to say. They couldn’t-- botch their results. That’d be sabotaging their own work. If they returned early with a job well done, that’d be a positive mark in their records. Whichever Master assigned the next mission would see it and, perhaps, bump them up in the queue.

Neil, of course, suffered no similar issue of speechlessness. He turned his head away from Kevin and murmured, “Hope there’s more to be found tomorrow.”

  


* * *

  


Kevin woke with Neil’s hair tickling his chin and his hands half-curled into the back of Neil’s shirt.

Mercifully, Neil was still out cold. As he had about as much control over what he did when asleep as he did over Neil, he shelved the pleasant, languid wake up for later analysis and moved off for the bathroom. 

When he returned, Neil was awake and stretching.

It struck Kevin then: he really had come far. Not six months prior, Neil had been malnourished and bone-thin, his stamina low, his lungs poor, skin sickly, nails cracked and hair brittle from dye and lack of nutrition. Now he was lean muscle and, if sun-deprived, not in any way malnourished. His shirt rode up, and the rough edge of a knife wound peeked out. Beside that was the dip of his spine, a smooth groove that could be easily traced up his back.

No. He was definitely not malnourished. 

“When are we expected?” Neil asked, and Kevin quickly blinked up to his eyes.

“As soon as we’re ready,” he answered, face straight at Neil’s vague frown. “No later than eight.”

Neil glanced at the clock. It said: five-thirty-three.

(They hadn’t even needed an alarm. Kevin was a bit impressed with himself. Then again: the birds outside were obnoxious, companion or not.)

“Twenty minutes to drive there,” Neil mused aloud. He then abruptly stopped his stretching (Kevin did _not_ frown) to flop down in the rectangle of sunlight cast by the window, bare arms thrown over his eyes and legs kicked out. 

Kevin let himself frown, then. “What are you doing?”

“I haven’t felt this in what seems like years,” Neil told him. “Piss off, Kevin; I’m enjoying it.”

“We should--”

“You’ll have to drag me,” Neil happily interrupted him. “You want me to leave this room before then? Fine. But it won’t be willingly.”

Kevin considered his options in partially fuming silence. The wife would undoubtedly have something to feed them. He was unclear on when Higgins would wake, but he was a good officer: it would probably be soon.

Finally, in _compromise_ (he could just hear Andrew’s sarcastic praise for his learning useless skills), he pointed out: “It’d be an hour’s run.”

Silence.

He held all of Neil’s attention. The air sang with it. 

“Probably,” he replied. “Wouldn’t have to deal with traffic.”

“It’d be… a deviation from the expected norm,” Kevin hedged, “but we wouldn’t leave parameters and taking an alternative form of transportation, with Higgins’ approval, isn’t expressly against the rules.”

A beat.

“Is that an offer?” Neil asked, voice -- not healthy. Brittle. Not in a way someone who hadn’t spent every waking moment with him could catch, Kevin thought. He was a good liar, the Masters hadn’t made that up, but what they’d left out was that Neil was just as vulnerable to a liar’s dashed hope as anyone else.

“Yes,” Kevin said, a bit impatient. If it wasn’t, he wouldn’t have made it.

“Alright.” Another pause. Less brittle. Then, arm dropped from his eyes, the blue squinting in Kevin’s direction against the harsh sunlight. “After breakfast.”

A reasonable addendum. “You’re going to have to get ready.”

“Alright,” he said again, as if it was ever that easy to tell him what to do. Then again, maybe with the right tools, it was. 

Kevin didn’t truly believe it, but the smell of city life mingled with Neil’s lack of tension (that _something else_ ) put him close to cloud nine.

  


* * *

  


The tests, it turned out, weren’t complete.

They found enough missing links to last three days in Boston.

It rankled, but when he woke up the second morning with Neil curled toward him and morning sunlight softening everything in the room, he supposed the missed positive mark was acceptable. Ideally, they’d instead have a mark for a job thoroughly conducted. 

In any case, they’d have more chances to make up for it. They did their job decently. Higgins seemed approving, and likely to put in a glowing review.

On their drive back to the helicopter, Neil’s heart-rate kicked up and his fingers found the top edge of his tracking bracelet. 

Kevin sat rigid and still next to him, nothing but his eyes following the movement.

The _something_ fizzled and burned out. It must have been relaxation or joy, Kevin decided; every emotion came as a result of a biochemical combination, and it was all a matter of matching up what smell went with what to figure out how a person felt. In Neil’s case, a familiar, sharp scent replaced the newer one. 

Fear. The break, however small, made it taste all the worse.

But Neil hesitated before he tried anything, and then they were at the helicopter pad, and then they were loaded in, and then whatever remote signal monitored the bracelet clicked off because they were a thousand feet into the air and Neil had nowhere left to run.

  


* * *

  


They returned home from their debriefing to the sound of rotten laughter. 

The new fridge and dining furniture differed from their predecessors not one lick. The Andrew Minyard perched on the edge of the table with a steak knife in hand, however, resembled memory in blond hair and pale skin alone. Head cocked, pupils blown to nothing but white-ringed black, the smile on his face five degrees left of sane and fifty paces into violent, he looked a caricature of whom he had been.

They froze in the doorway, the sentinels locking eyes. Edging his way in and around Kevin, Neil quietly let the door behind them click shut.

Black handle flipped in one twist of the wrist - Kevin stepped neatly in front of Neil, shoulders back - and Andrew jabbed the blade into their new tabletop, letting it wobble under one amused and two uncertain pairs of eyes.

“Won’t be needing that after all,” Andrew sing-songed. “I was told I’d be getting new roommates. Wanted to make a good first impression. But no, same old, same old -- still stuck with you two obsessive morons.”

How long had he been sitting there? Curfew wasn’t for three hours.

That wasn’t the question worth asking, Neil felt. 

“Andrew,” Kevin started. Andrew hummed an acknowledgment. Out of habit - Andrew had never been one to waste his time, let alone noise - Kevin waited for its end before continuing with, “Are you still medicated?”

His incisors joined in being bared, the grin beastly. “Just like old times. Give it six hours, and I’ll puking my guts out.” He found this funny; his laugh said he found it funny; his audience did not find it funny, and did not join in. Neil’s eyes flitted to Kevin’s in silent question, leaning a bit around him to catch his gaze, but Andrew had his full attention.

Contrary to which sentinel he aimed for, the movement snagged Andrew’s. For someone that seemed to struggle to focus on anything, his attention was sharper than the blade in the table.

Hand raised, palm up and one finger crooked, he beckoned, “You. Rabbit. Come here.”

Kevin tensed, arm stuck out despite the fact Neil hadn’t moved. “That’s--”

“I’m not going to hurt him,” Andrew sighed, as if he wasn’t dripping in latent mania. “You can come too, Kevin, if you’re so set on being a mother hen.” A beat. When neither of them moved, he shook his head with a disbelieving chuckle. “Rabbit?”

“You look insane,” Neil told him.

“They say I’m inclined to violent psychosis. The drugs help regulate that.” 

He curled his hand, a little more impatient.

With Kevin a step behind, Neil went.

In a whisper meant to sound more secretive than it was, Andrew said, “Stop,” and, “Stay still,” and, “You too, Kevin. Back off,” the moment Neil came within arm’s reach. He slid off the table, leaving the knife; he looked Neil over much the same as he had at the night of the brawl. Dilated pupils contracted at the bandage on his hand; before Neil could blink, he had his wrist seized and pulled to Andrew’s eye-level.

“What happened?” He asked, voice surprisingly level considering the way he turned Neil’s hand this way and that and felt, very keenly, on the edge of what his drugs were supposed to suppress.

“Gun jammed,” Neil answered, rigid but for what Andrew wanted of his hand, “barrel exploded.”

“You’re too dedicated to self-preservation to keep firing a jammed gun.”

Accidents happened. But, for the truth: “Whoever had it last didn’t clean it properly.”

The fingers on his wrist stilled. Andrew looked up and over Neil’s head.

In the room’s engineered silence, what followed sounded like little more than an oddly long sigh.

Even before Kevin looked away, Neil became keenly aware a conversation about him was happening right over him. It didn’t feel right, and he meant to interrupt it, but then Andrew’s lips were an inch from his ear and he sweetly promised, words barely a breath, “I’ll kill him.”

Recoiling, Neil jerked his hand back and backpedaled the step it took to bump into Kevin’s chest. Andrew let him go, smoothly sitting back on his hands.

“Injury aside,” he said, “you smell good. A little more sunny. The wild, wild world suits you, Mr. Cotton-Tail.”

Kevin’s hand was on his elbow. Andrew’s eyes dropped to the contact, head again tilting.

Oblivious or uncaring of the scrutiny and far happier to leave the subject of Riko behind, Kevin asked, “Did they give you a prescription to follow?”

“Bee didn’t think it necessary,” Andrew said, “so, in seven hours, after I finish dry heaving, you’ll need to keep me from breaking our new fridge. Hmm, these quarters are cramped. Neil, you’d best stay in the bedroom.”

“Why did she put you on them in the first place?” 

“She didn’t.” Andrew’s head tipped back, his eyes roving on the ceiling. He didn’t, Neil thought, actually see a thing. “Proust did.”

Neil jumped and clenched his teeth around a curse. The fingers on his elbow had tightened enough to bruise - in a flash, Kevin let go to step back, and Andrew’s head snapped back to Neil.

“Watch it,” Andrew murmured. “I spent the past however long maintaining I wasn’t a danger to my roommates.”

“Twenty-one days.” Kevin supplied. Tension Neil hadn’t even realized ran along Andrew’s shoulders relaxed. “That’s all.”

“You’ve kept busy,” he replied, rather than say what he and Neil both must have thought: twenty-one days was, without change or a breath of fresh air, a lifetime. “First mission?”

Kevin hesitated, his eyebrows furrowed at Andrew. Something was at work there - maybe, for once, something beyond their jobs within Evermore.

But then the moment passed, and Kevin gave in to routine. He nudged Neil’s shoulder to take a seat; after Neil had and Andrew finally slid off the table (taking the knife with him), he took his own, and together, they ran through a second debriefing. No matter how Kevin tried to keep on topic, Andrew asked more about what sort of shops they’d passed and if there was anything of interest in Boston. Neil humored him. Soon enough they’d digressed to discussing marine biology rather than anything relevant; though Kevin huffed and grumbled, and something occasionally set Andrew off into dark laughing fits (things Neil didn’t want to know the stories behind, like their having to share a bed or how the wife waited up for them), violence and tension alike seeped out of the room.

  


* * *

  


Andrew’s dosage was timed perfectly to wreck havoc in the middle of their best sleep cycles.

He fought his own way to the bathroom, but thirty minutes of listening to his induced nausea forcefully emptying his stomach was more than enough. Neil stuck his head under his pillow and left Kevin to deal with it.

A good thing, too. As Andrew predicted, the second half of the night was a haven for violence: the drugs leaving his system left him shaking with unmitigated cravings, vulnerable in an overwhelming need to find more. Andrew did not, ever, deal well with powerlessness, to others, his body or his mind. To make matters worse, he - someone already averse to touch - seemed to take extreme issue with it that night.

But he told Kevin not to let him break the fridge.

And he refused to enter the bedroom.

And they still couldn’t leave the apartment.

By the morning, one chair and all the fruit suffered as collateral. Andrew had left marks on Kevin, but - by some virtue, perhaps one ingrained by what he’d experienced in the last twenty-one days - all of them were easily concealed under clothing, and none of them went deeper than what one might receive from a particularly intense bout the sparring ring.

(They had nowhere but each other to put the pent-up energy. _At least when it’s between us,_ Kevin later said, _we know how far we can go._ )

( _It’s disgusting,_ Neil replied, _that this is what you’re reduced to. I thought you said you were prized soldiers. They’re fine with risking one of you killing the other._ )

(Again, Kevin didn’t reply.)

  


* * *

  


Andrew wouldn’t sit next to Kevin for the next five days. Neil wasn’t sure if it was residual anger from whatever tricks Kevin pulled to get a delirious and strung-out Andrew to calm down, or a dash of self-punishment for letting himself hurt Kevin bad enough that they _had_ to hide it.

“He’d been on them before?” Neil asked Kevin as Andrew visited Dr. Dobson for a check-in. 

The sentinels donated (involuntarily) blood and tissue samples every seven days. Neil had once done the calculations in his head, and two vials they filled every week should have laid their subjects up for _at least_ a day after, if not further consequences from the consistencies of their donations. Andrew had mocked his surprise, quoting the scientists in explaining _they healed fast, so they had a lot to give._

Side lined against Neil’s, Kevin nodded. “Before he was transferred to Dr. Dobson. He had too many outbursts on his record. The Masters decided something needed to be done, and Dr. Proust was happy to step up to the plate.” 

He paused, but not like he’d finished speaking.

Finally, he continued with, “They also hadn’t dabbled far into drug application before. Because of him, they found an anesthesia that works on sentinels. And… a few things besides.” A grimace, light but present. “It wasn’t pleasant. I only really hung around him toward the end, but the improved models had their fair share of mess-ups, too.”

If the drugs were the only way Neil would hear Andrew laugh, then it would be too soon if he never heard the noise again.

  


* * *

  


“Do you regret it?” He had to know. He had to. For his own future’s sanity, he needed to know.

Andrew didn’t so much as glance up from his strawberry yogurt.

“I hate repeating myself.” 

Neil breathed easier.

He then pointed out, “You just did.”

 _That_ got him a flat look. 

The edge of Neil’s mouth quirked up in cheeky reply.

  


* * *

  


They received their second assignment within two weeks, with one night’s heads-up.

“Fast,” Andrew murmured from his chair in the kitchen’s corner, back pressed to the wall. In front of him sat Neil, while Kevin attempted to busy himself with a stir-fry. It half-worked. They’d rediscovered an equilibrium since Andrew’s return and the lack of another attempt on Neil’s health, but the overall dynamic had changed. 

It felt more cohesive. It felt more broken. It felt like something needed to be said, but there was nothing left to tell.

They all whispered now. Andrew had informed him of the cameras in their apartment’s walls during cardio, the treadmill’s whirr nearly drowning out his voice; it wasn’t difficult to make the leap to the microphones. Neil had almost asked if that was the case, why they hadn’t seen Kevin start the first fight and know Andrew was, by and large, no threat to them -- but, then, it really didn’t bare asking.

At first it’d felt a little silly, but at the same time, it fought against the crawling in his skin with the knowledge that, yes, every portion of their life was monitored.

(He’d known on some level. He’d denied it for the sake of his sanity.)

“The last job was nothing,” Kevin replied from the stove. He’d just bought their kitchen’s first bottle of canola oil, and he treated it like it’d gone out of its way to personally vouch for his character in front of Tetsuji Moriyama. “It was far below our skillset. But it helped our rating.”

“Hm,” Andrew said.

He had his foot hooked under Neil’s chair leg, limbs relaxed but body opened only toward Neil.

Two weeks in, the causal proximity was no longer new. At first it had been: at first he’d stiffened and often stepped away, but Andrew never stopped him or commented on it, and by and by, it reached the same level as Kevin’s absent-minded touchiness. That was: it didn’t register at all. Compared to the world around them, Kevin and Andrew were the least threatening things in Neil’s life.

But it did make Neil wonder: Kevin’s obsession made sense. It was chemically wired into him. Andrew’s, from the protectiveness taken a step too far too quickly to the attentiveness to how he fretted over Neil’s state in his own prickly, blunt manner, did not. From a certain angle, Andrew orbited Neil far more than he did Kevin. Neil had thought that was just how he was with Kevin, that he was the interloper, but -- maybe not. It didn’t have to be one or the other.

(In Neil’s defense, he made it a point to never think like _them_.)

(But when he took a moment and tried, he met the end of his wondering.)

Neil caught Andrew’s eye with a question. 

In response, Andrew raised one eyebrow.

The question shifted to realization.

“About time,” Andrew said, his expression shuttered. “Don’t worry. I still think you’re a loose cannon that’s more trouble than it’s worth.”

“What?” Kevin asked, bemused over sizzling cucumbers.

Unlike Kevin--

“You wouldn’t stop me,” Neil said, a little awed despite himself. It was fact the moment it hit the air: it had been fact since they’d met. Andrew had always watched him too closely; he’d always been possessive, whether it was Kevin or Neil; he’d long feared Andrew would put his weight behind the ball and chain on his foot, but ultimately, when it counted, he understood that he wouldn’t. _If I ran, you wouldn’t stop me._

No matter what he was to Andrew, he would give the space Neil needed. This didn’t change it.

The realization could have driven a wedge between them. Instead, it threw open the doors.

“It isn’t anything personal. A story’s always more interesting when choice is involved,” Andrew said. He was saying-- something. Offering something. Neil scrabbled to grasp it, feeling the edges just out of reach. “Besides, I don’t think I need to say how I don’t like to share.”

Neil glanced to Kevin. Kevin blinked back at him, frowning and utterly lost.

(In his defense, he had a one-track mind. In his defense, these details didn’t matter: Kevin was, at heart, a simple man.)

Andrew snorted, drawing Neil’s attention back as he tipped his head against the wall. “He’s been mine for years. It isn’t sharing if it’s with yourself.”

“Does _he_ know that?”

“He chose it.”

“Would someone fill me in what we’re talking about?” Kevin demanded, impatient and not a little rankled. The stir-fry steamed from the inattention, impatient itself to punish Kevin for leaving it to cook.

Andrew held Neil’s gaze for a moment longer, a challenge and an offer and nothing at all.

In the end, Neil whispered, “Got it.”

Andrew didn’t smile, but with eyes lidded, he murmured back, “When you spring, rabbit, make it count.”

  


* * *

  


They left as early in the morning as they had the first time, with the same bare-bones packs and three-day limit. They weren’t told their destination, only that it was in upstate Vermont. They took a plane. They received the bulk of their orientation from a black suited woman, her broach red and face blank as she laid out their instructions.

It was a manhunt, she said. For a sentinel named Renee Walker. She was unmatched and had gone AWOL from their Chicago branch two months previous. It’d taken ages, but they were fairly certain they had her next stop narrowed to the countryside surrounding Swanton. A plan to detain her was in place; Kevin and Neil were simply the back-up muscle. If all went without a hitch, they would only be needed to escort her home.

They’d prefer her alive, but she’d left her handlers dead on her escape, and was presumed to be hostile. They were permitted to use the necessary force to ensure their team returned home.

This time, Neil was not given a tracer. 

Kevin murmured, “This is too big of a jump,” once the woman had retreated to the front cabin and left them to digest the new information. He glanced at his companion-- in truth, aside from Walker being a sentinel, it wasn’t so peculiar a job. It was simply… pointed. Personal. Intentional. If Kevin didn’t know better, he’d say it felt like a job Riko should have had but which Riko insisted to give to the new pair.

(Because he did know better, he knew it was just that.)

(He worried.)

Neil picked at leather armrests, thoughts turned inward and eyes unwavering from the white clouds outside their small window.

  


* * *

  


The first day was dedicated to meeting the team - sizable, composed of twenty men and women, all geared to the gills with charged weaponry and flash grenades - and patrolling the unbeaten paths they laid their wires along. Renee wasn’t expected in town until the next day; they were told to keep their cover, but not to worry too much. 

“Our intel’s spot-on,” the commanding officer chuckled with a friendly clap to Kevin’s shoulder. Kevin smiled his perfectly sociable smile, but did not return it. “I know, I know, we shouldn’t get ahead of ourselves, but really, we’ve got this one in the bag. The only toss-up is whether or not the bitch’ll choose to make that a body bag.”

The woods outside Swanton were lush, overgrown and clumped between groves of berry bushes. The summer heat wasn’t much compared to the southern states, but three days wasn’t enough time for Neil or Kevin to feel completely comfortable outside of perfectly regulated temperatures. Kevin insisted they walk the trail twice and re-check their team’s triggers. Though he followed obediently, Neil grew quieter, and quieter, and quieter.

Kevin knew he wasn’t the best at reading people, but he wasn’t that dense. The warning signs were all there: the way Neil looked more around them than at their stakes, the intentness with which he studied the town map they were handed, and then the state map thumbnailed in the corner. He might as well have told Kevin himself he planned to make a break for it as soon as the night fell.

But -- for whatever reason, something in him held his tongue. 

(If he didn’t say it aloud, then he didn’t know. Plausible deniability.)

(If he didn’t say it aloud, then maybe Neil wouldn’t.)

(If he didn’t say it aloud, he didn’t have to acknowledge which he hoped more for.)

They were put up in a cheap motel, more for lack of anything better than anything else. This time around, they got the bed count right: two queens, clean and impersonal.

When Kevin dropped his bag on one and then joined Neil on the other, Neil didn’t protest. When he lined himself along Neil’s back, Neil didn’t protest. When he slipped hands up a thin cotton shirt to trace the outlines of what he’d only seen, Neil’s muscles tensed but no fear joined the high-strung anticipation in the air, and still, he didn’t protest. When he dragged nails across Neil’s chest, when he tugged Neil’s ear with his teeth, when he palmed Neil through his shorts, when he rocked into hips pressed back against him and heady arousal filled the room, when Neil arched his spine and tangled his fingers over Kevin’s and hooked a foot behind his knee to urge him closer and burned hot with high, breathy noises tumbling from his throat, all rhythm lost the moment Kevin bit and sucked and pulled a bruise high on his neck in a shuddering moan, muscles seizing and toes curling-- he didn’t protest.

When Kevin shifted him to lie on his stomach, when he covered him like he could keep him forever and snarled possession and remembrance into his newly bruise-peppered shoulder, he agreed. Fingers interlaced with Kevin’s and forehead shoved into a pillow, he said he wouldn’t forget, he said he wouldn’t leave, he said he was his, he said Kevin’s name and _thought you were supposed to be super-sensitive, what’s the hold up?_

He was a liar.

 _Quiet_ , Kevin returned with no heat or command, _not my fault you’ve no stamina,_ all hidden gratitude and buried adoration. To the sound of Neil’s breathless laugh, he ground down and came, rode the pleasure out with teeth buried too hard into Neil’s shoulder and hands fumbling fast for less delicate wrists to tighten around.

Later Neil would complain about the ache in his wrists and lower back, and the purple marks on his shoulders (especially, he’d say, the one no collar was high enough to hide). Later he’d remark he was down to one pair of shorts for the rest of the trip, and that was plain awful.

But later was later. Right after, Kevin gentled and Neil let himself be held. He protested only because, according to him, Kevin’s bulky chest gave him no room to breathe. Once he’d wiggled and squirmed and generally made a nuisance of himself into finding just how he wanted to be - head tucked under Kevin’s chin and the rest of him a lazy crescent that fit neatly in the border Kevin’s legs made, one of Kevin’s arms under his head and the other over his side - he sighed and, finally, relaxed.

Before they fell asleep, Kevin dipped his head (Neil protested sleepily) to catch a kiss. It was a bit backwards, all that before their first kiss, but neither protested. There were far worse ways than a warm, chaste kiss to end a night.

  


* * *

  


Neil was still in his arms come morning. Kevin, it turned out, was something like an octopus in his sleep. 

He didn’t have a problem with it. Neil had a problem with the drool in his hair, but after sleeping in damp shorts, that was the least of his concerns.

They took turns with the shower (it wasn’t, they felt, that sort of morning, and they weren’t, moreover, at that point) and turns with dressing. If self-satisfied pleasure thrummed through Kevin’s chest at the hickey peeking out of Neil’s black collar, well-- Neil caught the look and mocked him for it, so it wasn’t bad in the least. 

Over breakfast in the lobby and the trek to the base, they didn’t talk about anything but the detainment plan and, in their own way, each other. 

Kevin learned Neil had a preference for fruits. 

“Why didn’t you say so?” He demanded, somewhat offended.

“Don’t pull that on me now,” Neil grumbled. 

He didn’t seem to grasp how much easier he’d made Kevin’s life. As the main cook and the only one in their trio invested in their dietary plans, he pressed, “There’s so many options with fruits. There’s fruit for your digestion, for your heart, for your cholesterol. There’s fruit _salad_.”

Neil stared at him, and then, startled, huffed a laugh. “You’re something else, Kevin.”

(Right behind the kiss, that -- that was definitely something Kevin wanted to remember.)

The commanding officer had to do a double-take at Kevin’s unashamed morning glow and Neil’s hickey, but she was graceful enough to keep her mouth shut. If Kevin hadn’t thought she wouldn’t mention it, he-- well, he would’ve curbed his satisfaction a _bit._ Maybe not all the way. 

Just so long as Riko didn’t find out, it was fine.

A few men of the team muttered about the perversion inherent to a whatever the fuck went on between a sentinel and companion. They didn’t react until Kevin caught a word about him _of course_ getting a leg up on a pretty-boy like that, _who wouldn’t want a face like that sucking your cock_ ; then he stopped dead, sought the speaker out with a cool glance (it wasn't hard - the man straightened up with indignation on being spotted), and strode over to him.  
  
At first glance, Kevin easily had seven inches and fifty pounds on him.  
  
(Behind him, Neil raised an eyebrow.)  
  
Kevin looked the man over, from his rankings to his unpolished boots. "You're a Sargent?" His eyes narrowed. "How?"  
  
The man sneered. "More qualified than you, fucking fa--"  
  
For the first time in-- ever, Kevin took a page from Andrew’s book and forcibly shut the man's mouth with an expertly thrown fist.

(Neil's second eyebrow joined the first.)

He had to be taken to the hospital for a potentially broken jaw. It left a slight gap in their guard rotation. The commanding officer chastised Kevin and threatened to make a mark on his final report, but he was too valuable to be removed from the operation and their time had abruptly shortened.

Base set in the borrowed basement of a community center that sat downwind from her projected path, they had infrared wires set across three miles of forest and farmland. The tech team monitored the alarms for absolutely any movement - more than once they caught a wind-blown branch or wild animal, but they barely took time to breathe, let alone curse about how sensitive the system was.

She was due on foot somewhere in the three miles. It wasn’t ideal, but it was the closest they’d gotten in two months. For the Masters and millions of dollars in the form of a medium-sized Asian woman, that was a lot of time.

The day, too, took a lot of time. It passed minute by agonizing minute. It passed not at all. Evening came, dusk settled, and still, nothing.

“C-4 is hot,” one technician reported, voice terse. “Definitely human shaped. Weight and heat signature matches our records. She’s not alone.”

And then: time packed its things and disappeared.

Most of them were located downwind, but they’d set trucks at three other locations. Those trucks revved their engines and crashed through hunter’s trails and through fields left fallow. 

Three miles became one rapidly moving dot and her two friends. 

“Day,” the commanding officer snapped, tension all along her back (her career rode on the success of this mission), “get out there. I want you at C-1 with tranquilizers.”

Neil, for the first time, spoke up. “She’s in B block.”

The commander didn’t waste time in telling him not to question her. She simply said, “She’ll double back. I’ve studied, breathed and lived everything the Masters had on her for two months. The moment she knows she’s been compromised, she won’t fight forward; she’ll run.”

Neil fell silent.

Kevin turned on a heel and did as the commander told. Obedient, Neil fell in step behind him.

“If we hadn’t lost Johnson,” Kevin caught just as they left, “alpha group could’ve taken her.”

It was too late to worry about his record for _that_ oversight. Neil asked to drive. He handed over the keys, they swung themselves onto an off-road jeep and took off in a dim roar for C-1.

  


* * *

  


_Beta group, Jackson reporting,_ crackled over the radio. _One hostile down. Male. Remaining female subjects are armed._

_Gamma group, Hughes reporting. Targets have split. Human headed south to headquarters. Sentinel’s location currently unknown._

_How did you lose her, Gamma? She was right in front you._

_She’s fast, ma’am. Fucking freak of nature. No offense, Day._

_None taken._

_Beta group, Romero reporting. Human in scope. Permission to open fire?_

_Permission granted. We need the sentinel, not her baggage._

_…_

_…_

Parked one-hundred twenty yards away, if Kevin strained his ears, he could just barely hear the jeep’s engine pop and hiss as it cooled. Neil at his side, heart slow and breath steady, was a much nicer thing to focus on.

Even with insulated headsets, their radio was too loud. But they were in position, and downwind, and relying on one officer’s word; Kevin put the radio out of his mind and, instead, an eye on the hand-held radar they’d given him.

_Beta group, Jackson reporting. Hostile female lost._

_How?_

_Romero’s down. Tires are blown._

_Fuck’s sake. Where’s Walker? Who has sight on Walker?_

The radar blipped. A red dot appeared in its green.

_Got her on the grid! She’s doubled back. Who’s in C block? Shit -- alpha group?_

_Day and Wesninski, take point,_ alpha group’s co-leader replied. _We’re on the wrong side of these damn trees. T minus twelve for rendezvous._

If Kevin strained his ears, he could just hear the rapid footfalls of someone fleeing a fate they very, very much didn’t want to meet.

Neil’s glance asked him in silence, _won’t she know we’re here?_

 __He shook his head. _She has no focus. She won’t be able to pick us out just like that._

If they’d been upwind, she would have caught the distinctive smell of another sentinel and diverted her trajectory. Unfortunately for her, Kevin wasn’t green. He clicked off the radio and radar and shouldered the tranquilizer gun higher. By his estimation, she’d arrive on their right.

He flicked his fingers. Neil took left.

The night-darkened trees made for good cover. As they had the element of surprise, it was in their benefit.

He held still. Neil held still.

Walker was well-trained. She did her best to keep her run efficient. In better conditions - not startled, not running for her life, not facing off against another sentinel, not facing off against Kevin and Neil - she would’ve been impossible to follow. 

Unknowingly, she closed in. Kevin, by sound and smell and an educated estimation, steadied his gun where she would emerge.

Then: Neil moved.

Kevin froze.

They were alone. The nearest back-up was eleven minutes out. Walker wouldn’t be able to tell two humans from two deer at her range without help, but she’d recognize the sound of boots on leaves and be a damn fool not to put two and two together. Words would clue her in even faster -- Kevin bit his tongue for that reason, but flicked his fingers around his cover to tell Neil to _hold position._

Neil did not.

Neil doubled back to where they’d come from.

And Kevin remembered:

The jeep’s keys were in Neil’s pockets.

( _Rookie mistake, Day._ )

In two seconds, Kevin considered the possibilities. If he used the gun on Neil, Walker would definitely be alerted to their presence and escape. If he held position but Neil didn’t, Walker would most likely be alerted to their presence and escape. If he abandoned position to chase her down himself, he had a chance at apprehending her, but Neil would escape.

In the third second, he considered what wasn’t a possibility: if Neil stopped, none of this would be an issue.

Walker’s footsteps stalled as Neil’s picked up. She knew they were somewhere.

He abandoned position and gave chase.

Behind them, Neil ran.

  


* * *

  


The world returned in starts and shuddering stops. First, his eyes: the pupils dilated and contracted. Second, his fingers: the muscles twitched. Third, his throat: a dry swallow, the taste of copper lingering. Fourth, ears: noise filtered in like moss-clumped soup from a jug or sludge from a tap, garbled and jumbled and distasteful and utterly useless. 

Every step forward was like ramming into a brick wall. He was hyper-aware of everything without registering anything, and it _hurt._

He wasn’t sure he was breathing. He knew he needed air, but he couldn’t recall what part of him worked the oxygen-in, carbon-dioxide-out process, and he wasn’t sure what to do about not knowing what to do.

He felt young. He felt very, very young, and weak, and defenseless.

He shut his eyes to stifle panic and focused on figuring out how to breathe.

Unfortunately, his ears weren’t as easy to turn out: noises drained into the canals, solidified and stuffed him, and, bit by agonizing bit, too loud by far, began to make sense.

“... ext time.” 

“This was my next time, Jackson.”

“Guess you’re up shit creak without a paddle, commander.”

“Guess so.”

His whole hand twitched, not just his fingers. The female voice turned to him and subsequently ramped up in volume; he found the rest of him was beginning to respond, as he managed a full-body flinch. 

“Rejoining us, Day?”

Experimentally, he breathed deeper and exhaled slower. It worked. His lungs responded as they should. The world was still too bright even through his eyelids, the hum in the walls and buzz of lights too loud, the fabric on him and below him too itchy, too hot, too much.

He wondered why he was having such an issue with this.

Where was Andrew? He could be trusted to know what to do, always.

 _It’s been over five months since your last zoning_ , his mind helpfully informed him. _You bonded to Neil Wesninski. Andrew isn’t here._

Right.

Companions left sentinels, usually violently, occasionally from disease. There hadn’t been too many cases of it - two, in thirteen years - but it was well-known a sentinel could eventually find another companion.

They left out the in-between. The part where it felt like one’s own body didn’t belong in the world or to one’s self; like he had been complete, and now he wasn’t. Like he’d lost everything below his rib cage, but his heart refused to stop and he struggled onward as half a creature and more than half senseless.

It hurt.

Jackson whistled. Again, Kevin flinched.

“Damn,” the man said. “I’d heard about the… zoning bullshit. Didn’t realize it made ‘em harmless as a babe.”

“There’s a reason the companion matters,” the officer replied.

“Huh. Guess so.”

Kevin attempted to focus on what mattered. 

Everything aching in him replied: _Neil Wesninski._

His mouth, never traitorous, managed: “What of,” a long pause to sift through _Neil_ to the name he wanted, and he thought the other two knew who he meant but they left him to scrabble at straws anyway, “Walker?”

His eyes still weren’t open. But the air shifted, and he thought they exchanged a glance. 

“Lost her,” Jackson said.

“Not possible,” Kevin said. 

“What?”

“Not possible,” he repeated.

“We can’t hear you, Day. Speak up.”

“Not possible,” he shouted. “I had her locked down. She nearly broke my wrist, but I _had her_.”

The words range in his ear, and he felt on the verge of panic all over again. And yet, they reacted as if he’d barely whispered.

“Your companion bailed,” the commander said. Kevin struggled to breathe, eyes squeezed shut. “And you zoned. If you had her, Day, you lost her the second Wesninski went rogue.”

Shaking, clamy hands pressed against his eyes.

He was in front of an officer. He needed to stand up.

He managed to sit, hands dropped to his lap, eyes cracked open. Two watery blinks, and he forced them all the way open.

“I failed the mission,” he realized, head stuffed with cotton and thoughts far away. “I let the target escape.”

“Don’t be too hard on yourself, kid,” Jackson told him, not in the least bit sympathetic. “It’s more Wesninski’s fault than yours. He had one job, and he deserted you.” 

_No_ , came the immediate thought. _He got away. That’s better for him._

Unfortunately, Kevin was not so selfless he could stop the resentment from welling up. He’d known Neil’s plan, and - maybe he’d known when Neil would run, and he hadn’t taken precautions to stop him. But the fact Neil _had_ taken the opportunity-- _without Kevin-_ stung.

(That was the most shocking part: _without me. He left without me._ )

(He wasn’t surprised.)

(As much as he’d been full of everything a moment before, now he wasn’t anything.)

“Day?” The officer called, cautious.

He gave the appropriate response. Like a ticket machine: insert this, receive that. _Yes, ma’am._

“We’re on his trail. I know he’s been an expensive investment. Anyway, he can’t have gotten far.”

_Understood, ma’am. I’m willing to lend what skills I have._

“We’ll find him before we find Walker, that’s for sure.”

_That’s unfortunate, ma’am._

“It is. Can you return to the motel on your own? We’ll give you a ring once we find anything. You should report to your handler.”

_I’ll do that immediately, ma’am._

He stood. She dismissed him. He bowed. He left.

  


* * *

  


A call came as they flew back to Evermore. The Master’s woman, still polished in black and red and utterly unchanged save for disdain at Kevin’s double failure, answered it. 

He heard the whole conversation, but after she hung up, she told him it all again anyway.

“They have him. He really didn’t get far.”

 _One job,_ Kevin thought. _You had one job, Neil. You had to make it._

He also thought, _Thank you. My God, thank you._

He thought he said, _I’ll wait at the tarmac to collect him._

It must have been the right thing that left his mouth, because she tsked and said, “No need. Make your report and attend your debriefing. Proceed as normal for the circumstances.”

She meant: for a failure.

“Understood, ma’am.” He paused. He did not question. 

He paused. 

He questioned, “What will become of him?”

“You know we don’t deal lightly with deserters, Day.” She replied, eyes cool and unconcerned. She didn’t know him. She didn’t know Neil. She didn’t care about either of them. “He’s lucky he’s too valuable to be quietly put down. I’m sure in due time he’ll be back at your side.”

 _Don’t worry,_ he mentally added, and felt hysteria rise.

He repeated that he understood. Then, after three minutes of sitting in acceptable silence, he excused himself to the restroom and, quietly, broke down.

  


* * *

  


“Before our session ends, I wanted to inform you about a change in my nurse’s schedule.”

“Off the record?”

“Nothing’s off the record, Andrew.”

“The official record.”

“As much as something can be.” She paused. Tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. Watched him. She felt a reason to be cautious. He ran through the dozen worst-case scenarios he always kept in mind. “Negotiations with our German sister company have been going well. They’ve recently opened their doors to receive a few of our top specialists. If all goes well, the transfers will be permanent.”

“...”

“Mr. Minyard is very good at his job.”

“He’s not a specialist.”

“His academic studies have been going well. With a few hours in residence and exams, the university he’d been planning to attend has agreed to accelerate his qualifications.”

“...”

“He also has the appropriate language skills. You have relatives there, I believe? Or-- just one? A cousin?”

“When?”

“In three days.”

“...”

“...”

“Thank you.”

“They wouldn’t have informed you otherwise. I’ve found kinship means surprisingly little here.”

“It might change my behavior.”

“Your brother is being moved overseas. I’d be more concerned if it didn’t change your behavior, Andrew.” The chair creaked. Wrappers crinkled. “Take as many as you’d like. I’ve three extra bags.”

  


* * *

  


p>It wasn’t the same room.

It might have been five months but he’d had --- what had Kevin said? Two weeks? He’d had two weeks to map out a space barely four strides wide, and so he knew this wasn’t the same room. 

The lights stayed on the same, unwavering and, as he stared at them until his eyes began to water, buzzing horrendously. The mattress was bare. The grates weren’t clogged. The water tap--

Didn’t work.

Great.

“Apparently we’re on a time crunch,” he lamented to the dry spigot. “The statistics prove starvation’s too slow. Dehydration’s much more efficient.” Unlike the first time around, he didn’t have a keen sense of impending doom to weigh down his mind. He only had what dirt was left under his nails, the lingering memory of an open road, blessed freedom and solitude, a sunrise over misty, uninhabited hills and the undying pain that he’d never see any of it again.

Or, worse, that he wouldn’t _care_ about seeing it again. He knew he had limits, though he rarely realized them until he’d tipped right off the edge of one. He knew in the same way that he knew how to assemble a rifle in under a minute that people were malleable: hell, he just had to think of Kevin, and he had a prime example.

Running had given them perfect reason to lock him up. Every comment he’d made before that, every line he toed and crossed, gave them perfect reason to turn his brain into mush.

All they needed was his body. It would’ve been nice to have a fully functional soldier, but really, _really_ , at the end of the day, all they needed was--

“Wesninski?” It came from nowhere. It came from everywhere. “Hello. It’s good to finally meet you. I’ll be your attending physician for the next while; my name’s Dr. Proust.”

It came from the corner above the mattress, and it didn’t make Neil want to any friendlier than he already felt.

(He _felt_ like breaking each of the doctor’s fingers, for the past and present and future.)

“No hello? Hm. Rude. But that’s alright. Correcting behavioral issues is precisely why we brought you here.” The overhead light buzzed right through his ears; that _had_ to be intentional. It couldn’t be on the verge of burning out _forever._ “Roughly a month ago, Mr. Minyard occupied this same room. It would be a shame if Mr. Day followed the pattern his roommates have set. He used to show so much potential. 

“But at this point,” dripping in sympathy and pity in equal measures, as if he hated to say it, “it’s safe to say it’d be outright negligence not to examine all of you.”

Neil bit his cheek. Hard.

“Oh, but I don’t mean to be cold. Do you mind if I call you Nathaniel?”

Four strides along one wall, three along the other. He paced. It was better than sitting and staring.

“That’s a bit long. How about Nathan? According to my file, that’s your father’s name. I don’t suppose you’ve had much news from or about him since you joined us. Or before - your mother wouldn’t let you see him either, would she? Perhaps that was causing you some stress. A boy needs a father; yes, yes, you’re no longer a boy, but to a father, their child never really grows up.”

They’d found him because he’d depended on the jeep too long. He’d known it was bugged. He’d just -- want to get as far away as possible before hoofing it.

He hadn’t even made it a full day.

What if he was bugged, and he didn’t know it? Kevin and Andrew probably were. Something undetectable - something in their blood, too small to ever be removed. He couldn’t remember anything being injected into _him_ , but if he looked for it, if he thought about it, maybe he could. Maybe that itch on his neck wasn’t from Kevin; maybe it was from something foreign, something that his flesh and blood knew didn’t belong but he’d been too stupid to notice before.

 _You’re being paranoid_ , he told himself. _Stop. There’s nothing under your skin. This is what they want._

“Fortunately, Mr. Wesninski’s agreed to a visit. The details are currently in progress, but I’ll keep you updated, Nathaniel.”

He didn’t believe himself for a second.

New fear, he found, had nothing on a child’s fear. What was or wasn’t under his skin didn’t matter; the very real existence of his father terrified.

“Before that, however,” Dr. Proust continued, his voice lightening ever further, “I’ve arranged for your peers to aid your behavioral adjustments. Since you and me don’t have even a professional relationship yet, I thought it best to surround you with those you knew. Is that alright?”

“No,” he told the corner. 

The door unbolted and cracked open.

“Nathaniel,” sympathy and pity twisted into insult, Riko Moriyama tsked. Behind him, ever hollowed, Jean Moreau stood with a black box in his hands. “You’ve always been so uncouth.”

On the opposite end of four strides, Nathaniel held his ground.

“Take care, boys,” Dr. Proust told him. “I’ll check in again in a bit.”

The microphone presumably shut off. The door closed.

  


* * *

  


Nathaniel did not hold his ground for long.

Neil didn’t stand a chance.

  


* * *

  


The punishment for his failed mission began with a twenty-four hour suspension as they reworked his regime to address the concerns newly brought to light. The biggest gap was, _as it had been,_ his lack of influence over his companion. Rectification for that oversight would begin with Nathaniel, but he would, of course, need to be involved soon. They estimated five days before his presence would be necessary.

As before, lacking one member didn’t outwardly change their apartment. The kitchen was the same. The bedroom was the same. The bathroom was the same.

When Andrew arrived an hour before curfew, he was not the same.

The _he_ there was-- either of them. Both of them.

Between the two of them, there weren’t any surprises. This meeting continued that trend. 

Andrew joined him at the table. He wasn’t, as a general rule, one for casual touch, but when their knees knocked under the table, he didn’t move away.

Kevin appreciated that.

“You smell like shit,” Andrew told him. “And you look pathetic. Like you took three days to wallow around in a sewer.”

Kevin appreciated hearing that, too.

Mostly.

In the sense that it meant Andrew hadn’t -- he didn’t know. He’d been wrapped up in Riko’s sudden dislike and Neil’s offer of _everything_ enough that he’d forgotten a bit of this, how it was with just Andrew and him. As it went with most things, he hadn’t realized what he’d had until he lost it. Easy understanding, no pressure to focus on anything but a set goal, no expectations to be anything beyond what he already was. He didn’t do well without something to strive for, but Andrew’s acceptance-- was comforting. It was safe. 

With Andrew and him, it was a lot quieter. 

Literally. It was much quieter. They didn’t need to shout to be heard.

He told Andrew, “He managed eighteen hours.”

There: a touch of surprise. Not the good sort. Andrew hated surprises; Andrew, also, had been rooting for Neil’s permanent escape, though Kevin wondered if he’d understood what that really meant, or if Kevin was alone in struggling with _that_ hollowed space.

(Sometimes Kevin wondered about how Andrew watched Neil, about how easily he’d accepted him into their life, about how it couldn’t all be out of respect for Kevin’s designated companion.)

(Mostly, he didn’t. Whatever it meant, if Andrew didn’t bring it up, then it wouldn’t interfere with anything, and it didn’t truly matter.)

Too soft to be a word, Andrew let out a breath.

Then, a hint of frustration and bigger dash of disgust (not, Kevin thought, truly turned toward Neil): “I told him to make it _count._ ”

  


* * *

  


Riko Moriyama was not at the mess hall during the mandatory lunch hour.

Kevin noticed immediately. Andrew noticed two seconds after him.

“Have you two seen Jean? At morning class, maybe?” Knox asked, a little more tight around the edges than usual. He didn’t flit between social groups this morning: he came right to them, tray clattering heavy on the table as he sat. 

“No,” Kevin finally replied, tearing his eyes away from the open space in the chief specialists’ table. “He wasn’t there.”

He didn’t attend that class anymore, either, but Andrew did, and what Andrew knew, Kevin knew.

Knox blew out a breath, hand scrubbed through his cropped hair. “Oh. Alright.”

“Worried about your boyfriend, Knox?” Alvarez teased. Or, attempted to -- she, too, looked a bit strained around the edges. Her, Laila and Knox roomed together; if this was how Knox acted in public, Andrew could only imagine what sort of anxious mess he turned himself into in the relative privacy of his room. “He’s not actually your companion, you know.”

“This is the second day he’s been missing,” Knox stressed, fingers tapping on his unopened milk carton. The companion comment didn’t grate; it was, after all, true. It didn’t, as he often told the table, matter. Sentinels could be friends with unenhanced humans just fine -- and, really, Jean seemed in need of a friend. “We have electical together, him, Riko and me, but they were missing yesterday and now they’re missing here.”

“Have you checked the medical ward?” Laila asked, a little more fed up than tense.

“Why would Riko be missing, too?” 

She hummed deep in her throat. Alvarez immediately pressed her leg against hers. “Fair point.”

They didn’t ask about Neil. 

They didn’t need to. Evermore rarely missed an opportunity to make an example out of someone.

  


* * *

  


That night, neither could sleep.

That night, Kevin grappled for Andrew’s scarred wrist over the kitchen counter. Andrew snapped his hand back with a wordless snarl. He didn’t try again.

“Learn to use your words,” Andrew whispered to him later, the microwave’s clock telling them they had two hours before they had to stop pretending they were five minutes from going to bed. They sat side-by-side at the kitchen table, Kevin ramrod straight and Andrew’s mouth a breath away from his ear. “Maybe we’d get somewhere.”

“They’re with him. Riko and Jean.” Kevin murmured back. “I know it.”

“No shit, Sherlock.”

“If--”

“Them not being with him won’t make a difference in the long run.”

A dry swallow.

It wouldn’t. But it wasn’t as if they - him, Neil, Andrew - belonged anywhere else. What would they do if they didn’t have Evermore?

“Do you trust me?”

Kevin didn’t have to think about that one. “With everything, yes.”

“You’re a fool,” Andrew informed him. Kevin shivered, but it wasn’t just -- it was, sure, yes, Andrew wasn’t someone he’d completely been able to ignore, but it was also as Neil said: restlessness. Energy without an outlet. Hours cooped up in a room for no purpose other than restriction and control. Regardless, he wanted. “Don’t lose your naivity too fast, Day. You wouldn’t be you without it.”

He wasn’t--

“You still don’t want to leave,” Andrew corrected him without him saying a word. “You’re not stupid. You’re blind. There’s a difference.”

Moment by moment, his spine lost its rigidity. Piece by piece, he bent.

(He missed, ultimately, Thea. She understood. She understood so, so well.)

“Use your words,” Andrew goaded.

Kevin’s jaw clenched.

Then: relaxed.

“Can I--?”

“Not tonight,” Andrew replied. It wasn’t a no. With effort, Kevin didn’t take it as a yes. “Remember. There’s no meaning if you don’t chose it yourself.”

They didn’t sleep. 

Eventually Andrew’s fingers curled around his wrist. It would have to be enough.

  


* * *

  


In the morning, Andrew fisted his hand in the back of Kevin’s black shirt and pulled him right rather than left.

“I don’t have cardio in the mornings anymore,” Kevin reminded him, stumbling on the abrupt re-direction but - ultimately - following.

“You’re not feeling the best,” Andrew told him. “Being separated from your companion has left you volatile and paranoid. We’re going to Dr. Wymack.”

He opened his mouth and managed the start of a protest.

Andrew let go of his shirt, turned his back, and told him he had a choice, but he’d best make it fast.

( _He had a plan._ )

(Andrew could always be counted on having a plan.)

Accepting it, Kevin followed.

The halls to the medical ward looked no different from the halls to the gymnasium. The only change came from what signs were bolted on corners and what foggy white words were stenciled on what plain grey doors.

In the end, they didn’t make it to Dr. Wymack’s office.

Instead, they ran into Abby Winfield, who was wild-eyed and trying hard not to be. Her anxiety preceded her: sharp and high, it straightened Kevin’s back and turned Andrew’s head; when the woman followed the fear with a “ _Oh, thank God! You two!_ ” they stopped in their tracks.

She didn’t ask what they were doing outside of their scheduled places. She didn’t, it seemed, have time for that.

“David pushed through the red tape and found where they’re holding Neil--”

“He’s his primary physician, he’s required to do any post-mission examination,” Kevin cut in to argue, and then, fortunately, stopped himself. 

“Where?” If one was generous with their definition, Andrew asked her quite reasonably.

“This way,” she gestured, turned, and led. Cameras glinted overhead, along the ceiling’s edges and over doors; somehow, they managed to curb their mutual urge to run into a light jog. As they went, she asked them, “Do you have anything with you?” 

Kevin shot her a sharp look for the implication. Andrew responded, “We have what we need.”

She said, “David will keep them for a bit. We should take a stop at the office - I was sent to fetch Neil’s file, and a few things besides.”

“Will that be necessary?”

“I insist.”

The office was close. They accepted the offer. 

Nabbing a thick, unmarked folder, she shoved that and three packs at them - one, she said, courtesy of Bee. Andrew didn’t have to open it to smell the chocolate inside. In a furtive whisper in the darkened office, she gave them a series of numbers and a series of dates, a time and an open exit. 

Andrew listened.

Kevin barely followed.

She said, “Aaron’s flight is scheduled to leave at ten.”

Andrew replied, “I won’t go anywhere without him.”

She shook her head, her knuckles white on the back of her chair. “You’re of better use to him outside their reach.”

“We’re of better use to you outside their reach,” Andrew corrected, voice still as death.

She didn’t deny that.

“Check the files when you’re secure,” she whispered. “You can try to intercept his flight, Andrew, but he’s traveling with thirty of the best to a land that, currently, isn’t completely under the Masters’ control. Neil, on the other hand, is only being watched by three, and needs you right now.”

Footsteps approached their door. All within froze, barely breathing. 

The footsteps passed, unconcerned with a shut and dark doctor’s office. They headed down the hall; Kevin closed his eyes and listened as they turned and continued, not a second of hesitation.

When Kevin turned back to Abby and demanded, “Where is he?” Andrew did not protest.

She waited for them to put on the packs, and led the way.

  


* * *

  


Kevin knew this:

Five doors into solitary confinement, his father and Dr. Proust squared off as two white-coated professionals locked in a stalemate. Wymack looked like he’d rather square off with Dr. Proust as an unprofessional, preferably with his fists against Dr. Proust’s pasty white cheekbones.

Wymack saw their approach first. He said, loudly, “Oh! Good! The files, wherein I am in fact listed as his primary caretaker!” And then, with louder surprise that wouldn’t have fooled a toddler, “Kevin? Andrew?”

Kevin knew this: 

Dr. Proust’s much more real surprise as he turned. 

Kevin also knew this:

Nine methods to break a man’s neck with two hands. Two ways with one hand. More than either combined with the addition of gravity, legs, or creative improvisation.

He restrained himself not because Dr. Proust immediately wet himself and begged once Kevin had him by the lapels against the wall. It was Wymack’s voice alone, saying, “That’s one way. We’ll have your thumbprint alive or dead, Dr. Proust,” that kept him from permanently breaking the sniveling rat in two.

Interested in survival, he acquiesced.

Solitary confinement was built with the same insulation that allowed a sentinel fresh off the lab table a chance at sleeping: it kept everything in, and allowed absolutely nothing out. Without a door, its inhabitants had no chance at ever leaving its walls. Fortunately, this one still had a reason to open. The moment it did, its contents flooded every sense, superhuman or otherwise.

Kevin didn’t know this:

What he’d even expected.

  


* * *

  


Andrew knew this:

By being here, Aaron was out of his protection.

Andrew knew this:

By succeeding here, Aaron wouldn’t be out of his hands forever.

Andrew knew this:

The sight of Dr. Proust hampered his reaction time. Kevin, the overachiever that he was, filled in the gaps. The containment door he himself had walked from opened under a terrified man’s thumb, and humanity, raw and unfiltered, poured out. 

He put himself at an angle to see most everything in the room because if he did not, he was sure he would’ve fallen into the same biological trap Dr. Proust had been so set on using against him. As he’d predicted, Neil was immediately in view. As he’d thought in one of many worst-case scenarios, the only part of Neil he could see were the legs Jean Moreau held down.

Riko Moriyama looked up, someone else’s blood on his cheek and expression surprised.

Andrew knew this: 

In potential, all sentinels were equal. Through training, he was physically stronger than the rest. Through discipline, Kevin had a better eye and steadier hand than any other. Through design and birth, Riko was untouchable.

Andrew, in blasphemy against the Lord and his Masters, laid his hands on Riko.

A red knife glinted under harsh light. It missed its mark wildly; its wielder dropped it mid-swing. Jean, untouched, scrambled back in soundless shock.

Andrew knew this:

Riko deserved a lot worse than a swift death.

But when it came to one breath and the next, he breathed easier with the visceral pleasure of knowing the sound of Riko’s cervical vertebrae snapping apart.

Andrew didn’t know this:

Why he’d waited this long.

  


* * *

  


Neil knew this:

Demands. Denial. Pain. Pain. Pain.

Air. A different set of hands keeping him awake with bandages and compresses.

Demands, from afar. Denial. Demands, closer. Denial. Pain, pain, pain.

A door opened. 

Air.

A different set of hands moved him. They couldn’t avoid causing pain. 

He, gratefully, crashed into unconsciousness.

Neil didn’t know this:

Small, limp and bloodied as he was, Andrew gathered him close and, without looking up from muscle laid bare and brown-spotted bandages, told Jean: “Get out.”

Jean left. Dr. Proust did not follow.

(That one was on Wymack and a very convenient Taser. It was meant for if his patients became unruly, but, well. Dr. Proust had been much more unruly than any of his patients ever had been.)

Over his colleague’s slumped body, Wymack told Kevin and the ones within the cell, “You need to go. We’ll cover you as well as we can, but we can’t compromise what we’ve built here.”

“You’re staying?” Kevin asked, his whole body taking up the doorway. He couldn’t look in, not at what he’d heard and smelled and saw, but all the same, he knew he couldn’t allow anyone else in. He wasn’t entirely sure he could move from where he stood. He wasn’t entirely sure, period.

“You’re not the first,” Wymack told him. “You won’t be the last.”

“Read the files,” Abby added. “The names in there are to be trusted. They’ll help you. They want to.”

Behind him, movement. Andrew stood on steady legs, his hands gentle and heart - however brief the jump had been, Kevin had caught it - slowing. 

One person’s blood didn’t really smell any different from another’s. Riko hadn’t even bled.

Still, Kevin couldn’t look.

Wymack caught his eye, and there was -- something there. He didn’t know. A chance, maybe; a choice, most likely. This morning was full of them. Kevin rather preferred order, clear paths and set goals. This felt like free-falling; like grasping air and waiting to meet the ground; like what he, enhancements or not, would not survive. 

He was sure he had something to say to Wymack before possibly never seeing him again.

Possibly? If he left--

“Kevin,” Andrew, at his elbow, Andrew and Neil, his gaze slipped sideways and he saw blood, blood, blood. “Focus. I’m right here.”

It used to be what he’d say on the field, in the gym, in the apartment, after each and every loss of sense and place and purpose. 

“You need to go,” Wymack urged them, black eyes moving from Neil’s prone form to the incredibly empty hallway they had come down. “There’s medical supplies in your packs, I’d offer to patch him up here but there’s no time.”

“Take the way we discussed,” Abby said. “There’s a jeep at the end. The keys are in the glove-box. It’ll be red and unlocked. It’s not bugged.”

“You all have vehicle training, right?” Wymack added, dark humor warming his voice.

 _How did you two know,_ Kevin wanted to demand. But there wasn’t time, and it wasn’t the right question, and -- Andrew moved past him (he did not look into the room) with Neil, and he had to follow. He had to. Those two were as much a part of him as his hands, his eyes, his anything.

Behind him, Riko didn’t move. Riko, some detached part of himself knew, would never move again.

Heart in his throat, he followed.

Behind him, Wymack grasped the something that had been in his eyes. The words followed Kevin as much as the stench of Neil’s blood, tangible and unforgettable and not anything Kevin knew what to do with: “I’m proud of you.”

  


* * *

  


The alarms began to blare when they reached the garage.

Lock-down commenced just as they tore out in a red bodied, black canopied jeep, Kevin at the wheel and Andrew in the passenger’s seat, Neil cradled and unconscious in his arms. 

Compared to Evermore, a world clinical, constructed and controlled, the outside was bright, vast and overwhelming. Above, the sun hung amid tremendous blue; at their sides, whites and yellows and reds dotted lush green as trees and rocks and hidden creeks flew by. Beneath, the jeep’s engine rumbled and roared, the shocks thin and wheels taking each dip in a rough, narrow road hard. It should have been too much.

But Neil breathed, so Kevin breathed, and Andrew would never cease breathing as long as they needed him.

The packs contained clothes, official-looking government paperwork declaring them United States citizens, freeze-dried rations, water, a hunting knife, and fairly thick wads of cash. Andrew’s contained chocolate and a note that he didn’t immediately read. Red smudged manila as Andrew passed the files to Kevin; one hand on the wheel, one hand paging through until Andrew said, “There’s the map,” and he pulled it out for Andrew to peruse. His chin hooked atop Neil’s curly, sweat-slick hair as he pinned the paper to the dashboard, face blank. 

It told them to go to Atlanta, he eventually reported. Combined with the dates and numbers Abby had given them, the path was interspersed with safe houses and checkpoints. At several points, they were given instructions to change vehicles.

“Junction up ahead,” Kevin warned him. “Highway or interstate?”

“Highway,” Andrew replied. “Stop at the second truck stop. He’s fine for now. He won’t need stitches. But the cuts need cleaning, and more importantly, he needs to wake up.”

Kevin turned onto the highway.

When the jeep’s compass told him they were headed north-west rather than south-west, he didn’t question it. 

He drove.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading!
> 
> ([k]andreil will be more prevalent now that they have space to breathe. next chapters will be all about recovery and reaching something like peace, hope y'all are ready. again, thank you!)


	2. THE BEGINNING

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter includes a pretty explicit **nsfw** section. also: dysfunctional co-dependency and alcoholism.
> 
> (they get better. slowly.)
> 
> with that in mind, onwards! :')
> 
>  **eta,** 7/31/2016: extra introspection added! nothing plot-wise changed.

Smoke worked with everything.

It warmed the morning, cooled the afternoon, and lit up the night. Dawn, mid-day, dusk, it didn’t matter. A cigarette fit.

“Can you even get sick off those?”

Andrew let smoke eke from the sides of his mouth, arms draped over an old, rickety railing. He pointedly took a drag before looking to Neil.

“It’s an experiment in progress.” The sticks didn’t really damper anything that he could tell, but they were fine enough. He’d like to be higher up than this - heights were good, too, a nice rush, a counterpoint to chemical-laden tobacco - but for thirty-eight dollars a night, it was a miracle they had a working lock on their unbroken door. A sturdy roof would have been too much. “But here you are, weak lungs and all. I thought you were done with courting death.”

Something instinctual urged him to snub the cigarette before Neil got a whiff. 

Neil, sweaty from his morning run and still catching his breath, held out a hand. Andrew passed him the half-burnt cigarette and shook a new one out of the carton for himself. As always, Neil didn’t smoke his: he let it burn, the grey-blue smoke drifting up from fingers to curl, wispy, around his face.

(Smoke worked with _everything._ )

Kevin worked himself into a tizzy whenever he caught Andrew smoking around their companion. _He’s human,_ he would hiss, voice low from habit and frustration. _If you want to, fine. But don’t jeopardize his life more than necessary._

But aside from Neil’s morning or afternoon or night or whenever-he-needed-to runs, they were together. Kevin could get off his high horse. One way or another, Neil would die early from exposure; the only difference was if it would arise from a cigarette, his father, or his company. That Andrew made up two out of three possible reasons for Neil’s premature termination rankled the same instinct that would be satisfied only with putting Neil in a comfortably padded and never-to-be-opened room, but intellectually, Neil’s chances of outlasting the third decreased dramatically _without_ him.

It was a trade-off.

It was never an instinct worth giving in to.

Neil’s scuffed sneakers knocked against his socked feet as he leaned a hip against the railing. With him back in sight and smell, Andrew ran a real check on their surroundings. The neighboring room remained empty save some sort of small mammals. The staff hadn’t properly scrubbed a food stain off the walls. The weather was temperate. 

He’d zoned on a fucking cloud ten minutes after Neil had left, eyes straining pick out every grey bump and curl in the low floating formation. Coming down from that was the reason he was down half a pack. 

Kevin preferred sleeping whenever Neil went out. A zoned sentinel wasn’t going to be much use in case their position was compromised, but on the off-chance he _wouldn’t_ and they _were_ , Andrew couldn’t justify sleeping as well.

Neil had thus far returned and they were still AWOL according to whatever records the Moriyamas kept on them, so they were doing something right.

After both their cigarettes crumbled to ash on the cracked asphalt below, Neil’s sweat had cooled on his skin and he looked less ragged at the edges. _That_ was why, despite the risks and returned threat of vulnerability, his runs weren’t protested beyond the expected _should you really_ and _do you know the roads here?_

As Andrew watched from the corner of his eye, Neil’s nose scrunched and he picked unhappily at his shirt. “I need a shower.”

Conversation stuck in the back of Andrew’s throat, the words raw and unprocessed and thick as sludge. Carton and lighter returned to his back pocket, Andrew jiggled the stuck door - it wasn’t locked; it just tended to stick - and led the way back in. Kevin slept through it, one arm curled around a pillow and rough blankets tangled in his legs, the air within the room stale, the light yellowed from curtains drawn tight. Neil shook his head at the sight, toeing off his shoes and stepping for the small bathroom.

Andrew snagged Neil’s shirt and reeled him in. Neil fell back without complaint, holding still as Andrew checked him over with hands and eyes. A scratch on the back of the hand-- old, an accident from fixing their last car’s stalling engine. Dust collected there-- new, from Kansas’s dry trails. Salt on the skin-- healthy, warm, natural, mingled with smoke and wind and wheat and Neil.

This morning, he tucked his face in the junction of shoulder and neck and _breathed._ He smelled right. He felt right. Mouth parted-- he tasted right.

Neil shifted on his feet. “What was it today?”

Andrew briefly debated answering. But even on a morning like this, he was speaking with Neil. It wasn’t much of a question whether or not he’d answer. “Visual.”

A wary noise hummed through Neil’s throat. Andrew caught it against his tongue, found it as _right_ as everything else about Neil, and let him go.

He nodded for himself more than for Andrew, and stepped into the bathroom. The door clicked shut. Socked feet moved over linoleum. A few seconds later, the shower rattled to life, the pipes in the walls straining to catch up. 

Andrew listened a minute longer, and then went to wake Kevin up.

One snagged foot and harsh pull later, and he had green eyes glaring up at him from the floor. Kevin tried to tell him off for waking him like that, but his tongue still slept and his throat was parched besides, so he was about as intimidating as he ever was first thing in the morning. Before he could catch sight of the clock and insist they begin their early exercises before _it got too late_ (as if they _had_ any schedule to follow), Andrew told him, “Breakfast,” and left him to push himself up.

For all the room’s short-comings, they never wanted for good groceries. Kevin made sure of it.

They also never wanted for good snacks. Andrew made sure of that.

Kevin glared at him for his breakfast of a brownie and banana, but subdued when the greek yogurt he shoved into Andrew’s hands was accepted without complaint.

“Next time,” he commented, eating the yogurt first to quickly wash it away with the brownie, “yoplait.”

“That stuff is awful,” Kevin immediately complained. “It’s too artificial.”

“It has the necessary nutrients without tasting like cold tar.”

Not that it tasted much better than cold tar now that Andrew had tasted what else could be tasted, but that wasn’t the point to standing by yoplait’s subpar yogurt.

Kevin drew back and readied himself for an involved argument about proper nutrients in various dairy products. He was interrupted mid-rant by the shower clicking off and Neil sticking his head out of the doorway to say, “We’re arguing about yogurt? Again?” which, much to Andrew’s amusement, completely derailed Kevin’s impassioned opinion.

He restarted, but his argument stumbled. It proceeded to trip and tumble right into a ditch when Neil walked across the room with a large green towel wrapped around his waist to fetch a change of clothes.

 _That_ , Andrew thought, was the point of bringing up subpar yogurt.  


* * *

  
They’d roosted in the forgettable and wheat-covered Kansas town for two and a half weeks. 

In Kevin’s bag was a black book filled with tics and dashes and a plethora of other symbols long hours in the car had given him time to craft. He needed, he claimed, he _needed_ to keep a record of where they were and what they did and what time they spent and what their money went toward and what supplies they used when. Neil had fought him on it with passive aggressive silence and off-color comments on the trail it would lay out for anyone with half a brain, but in the end, Kevin’s need for the semblance of structure outweighed Neil’s anxiety. 

Where Andrew or Neil could see, Kevin checked the book on every departure and every arrival. Kevin cherished it like something sacred, treating it as relevantly as an anthropologist uncovering the dig of a lifetime every time he pulled it from the bag.

He’d used it to argue for why they shouldn’t stop at McDonald’s or Wafflehouse _again_ , but the moment he pulled it out was the moment Neil switched to Andrew’s side out of spite for its existence, so he’d stopped.

Andrew knew it wasn’t yet a full year since their departure from Evermore Laboratories. He didn’t particularly care about anything more specific than that.

Two and a half weeks into the small rural town, Neil returned to the motel out of breath and red-faced and gasping that they needed to go.

One duffle-bag each for clothing and necessities, one extra for food and toiletries, and their old-but-new-for-them car was packed. Kevin checked the book’s security before closing the trunk and sliding into the back seat. Dust kicked up in their wake, they left the motel and its sticky doors and peeling plaster behind.

Only then did Kevin ask, “Why are we leaving?”

From the passenger’s seat, his hand curled around the grab-handle, Neil said an abandoned lot had gained two pricey, sleek cars that he’d never seen anywhere else in town.

It sounded like paranoia. It probably was.

But they were unbound and untethered to anyone aside from each other. As long as that was true, they found it difficult to argue with a healthy dose of paranoia.

Andrew took exits and back roads and scenic routes, flying past open fields and clustered neighborhoods and skirting the edges of camera-laden cities. There wasn’t much of the latter in America’s golden heartland. That was how they preferred it. 

When Kevin bought himself cheap whiskey, dug out a weathered map and his book from the trunk during one stop for gas, neither Neil nor Andrew commented.

While he back-tracked from memory and made his records, Neil finally relaxed enough to give Andrew a destination: _Somerset, Colorado._

It would be their second time through Colorado and their first time into the Rockies. Andrew could ask why Neil had waited for their second go-around to direct them toward Somerset, but as they were headed there now, it wasn’t that important.

Kevin asked anyway, tone annoyed. Neil gave a blithe answer about mudslide season.

Andrew did his best to keep his foot a shade lighter than lead on the gas pedal.

It’d been less than a year, yes, but within that time, Andrew felt certain they’d ran through every western state twice. They’d ventured into Illinois _once_ , and Alabama _once_ , but never anywhere beyond. That was fine. The west was a frontier easy to get lost in, and they very much wanted to be lost.

(There had been, Andrew remembered with much more clarity, two upsets with black-armored men and carefully aimed tranquilizer darts. It wasn’t a bad record only because they still numbered three.)

Seedy motels, abandoned or remotely rented lofts: those places broke up hours to days to weeks on the road as they chased down the money Neil’s mother had stashed across the country. 

Neil confessed that he only knew the whereabouts of a fraction of what she’d stolen. He’d had numbers and codes to the bank accounts with the rest, but the Moriyamas undoubtedly cleared them after they’d found his journal.

 _Oh,_ Kevin airily snipped from the back, _you had a journal, too?_

 _With a handful of numbers and cash and nothing else,_ Neil had replied, just as aloof. 

That afternoon had been tense.

Andrew’d rolled down the window, ignored Kevin’s complaints about smoking in the car and ignored their silent fuming in favor of three cigarettes.

Neil also had a handful of contacts - his mother’s brother, for one - in mind, but he didn’t want to try for any of them without an emergency situation. 

_Your definition of an emergency situation would have one of us already dead,_ Andrew had commented.

Neil had shrugged. _You’re right._

 _Hm_ , hummed both Andrew and Kevin.

He still refused to tell them anything more than his uncle’s name. They let it slide. Neil liked his secrets -- more than that, Andrew thought, he liked the fact they wouldn’t push him for answers he didn’t want to give. 

What connected them wasn’t _tentative trust_ : they’d passed that point after Neil had woken, gasping and weakly struggling, to Andrew cleaning up Riko’s handiwork in a grimy truck stop’s shower, Kevin hovering by the bathroom door and scaring others away with folded arms, a scowl and flexed muscle.

That afternoon had been both too fast and too slow. 

Time was a funny thing when the minute-to-minute was left up entirely to choice.

Colorado’s mountains spiked the horizon line before Andrew could blink. Beside him, curled against the door with one of Kevin’s jackets as a pillow, seat belt off, Neil slept.

Kevin caught his gaze through the rear-view mirror.

“Need to switch?” He asked, voice an octave over the engine’s rumble.

Andrew flicked his fingers. _No._

Kevin’s eyes drifted to the window, his own fingers tapping restlessly on his knee.

They were loathe to use the identification cards Wymack and Winfield had given them. Without Neil’s contacts and with Andrew and Kevin’s utter lack of bureaucratic know-how, they were stuck with the papers they’d received. It meant no jobs and no signed leases and no bank accounts and no -- basically anything that could sprout roots. With Neil’s cash, they didn’t necessarily need any of that, and (as Neil never failed to point out), moving place to place was much safer. 

Again. They couldn’t disagree.

Over the third McDonald’s stop in two days (Kevin protested by bringing in his own lunch), Kevin had once roughly demanded, _If you’re such an expert, how’d you end up getting caught?_

 _Kevin_ , Andrew had answered for Neil, who’d locked up and swamped their booth with the stench of fear (an awful combination with grease and spilled soda), _shut up, or we’re stopping here for the next week._

Thankfully for his taste buds and their stomachs, he’d abstained from asking again.

It didn’t take the question back. And as time wore on, the answer grew in color and size.

Andrew was fine with moving every other day. Everything he needed to keep an eye on fit on two seats. 

Even thinking before Evermore- something he’d inevitably done more and more of as they traveled cross-country-, he knew he didn’t have high standard of living conditions.

But this wasn’t living, this was surviving. And much as he didn’t care, his body was beginning to. For the first time since the operation and after a week solid on the road, he’d woken up with a crick in his neck and ache in his back. He’d had to catalogue and re-catalogue it to make sure he wasn’t imagining it (or, worse, that the serum had finally figured out what trick he’d pulled and began breaking him down).

While he wondered at the pains any human should feel after hours driving a car, Kevin’s tongue sharpened and Neil’s temper rose. They weren’t going to last like this forever.

In the passenger seat, Neil’s eyes cracked open and squinted at the clock. 

He readjusted, frowning as tight muscles protested and his neck popped, huffing when he couldn’t find a more comfortable position.

“Neil,” Kevin murmured from the back, wide awake and half-finished with his whiskey, the tang of alcohol in the air, “stretch out back here.”

 

“M’fine,” Neil mumbled back, face shoved into the large, grey jacket.

“You’re really not.”

Neil mumbled further, words lost to a frustrated lack of sleep.

“Seriously,” Kevin huffed, hand reaching out to pull at Neil’s shoulder. “Get back here.”

He shrugged Kevin’s hand off and hunched tighter against the door. Andrew flicked his eyes up to the mirror in warning.

Rather than his customary scowl over being rejected, in the night’s dark and by the dashboard’s dim glow, Kevin looked unbearably worn. He returned to his bottle, his breath stinking but his eyes clear.

Andrew itched for a cigarette.

 _Huh_. Maybe nicotine did work on him.  


* * *

  
Somerset had its origins in the gold rush and its livelihood in coal mining. 

As both of those industries faded into the history books, Somerset did the same. The rickety, abandoned mine shafts and silent, steel drills weren’t why they’d come, however: an unassuming cabin nestled in the back of a cluster of two-story, five-plus bedroom lodges was their target, Neil instructing him by fuzzy memory and a quiet _here, this driveway_.

The cabin was in surprisingly good shape on the outside. They crunched their way over wet, melting snow to the cabin’s back, whereupon Neil stood back, looked between them, and said, “Well? Bust it down.”

Kevin looked affronted. The way his nose scrunched and eyebrows furrowed made it seem like he wanted to start in on the years of work and time sacrificed to perfecting the sentinel operation.

Not having time for a lecture in the crisp, chilly mountain air, Andrew eyed the solid pine door, raised a foot, and smashed the flat of his boot under the lock.

The door cracked open. Stuffy, sun-warmed air rushed out.

Kevin sneezed, Andrew coughed, and Neil, hand waving dust from his nose, ventured in.

(They followed before he got too far, Kevin doing his best to close the door after them.)

The inside was in fine shape; rather like its outside, it was unassuming, blank, and impersonal. The walls held no decorations. Dust coated sparse furniture. Neil had disappeared around a carpeted corner, kicked up particles glittering in his wake. 

They found him in the cabin’s bedroom, shuffling empty boxes out of the closet to peel back the carpet and, under that, pry off a loose floorboard. Within was a safe; Andrew couldn’t see it from his angle, but he heard the pins click as Neil worked the dial.

Kevin rolled his shoulders and head, thumbs digging into the cramped muscles of his shoulder with a slight wince. Rather than watching Neil excavate the next cash stash, Andrew watched him, mind turning.

“Good,” Neil breathed after bolts clicked and he pulled a heavy lid open, “it’s all still here.”

 _It_ turned out to be fifty thousand in hard cash. Not as much as a few other spots they’d unearthed, but a decent haul for the cabin.

Neil balked, the plastic bag of money tucked under his arm. “What? We can’t stay here.”

“Why not?” Kevin asked.

It didn’t sound like his usual demand. That wasn’t a good thing.

“My mom thought it was compromised. It could still be.”

“It’s been _years._ The cash is right there. The cabin’s in perfect condition. If anyone’s compromising this place, it’s no one bigger than a raccoon.”

Familiar tension crawled across Neil’s shoulders, the edges of him more than a bit nervous.

“If the pipes work,” Andrew decided for them, both sentinel and companion’s attention snapping to him when he spoke, “we’re staying the whole night.”

Neil looked ready to argue.

Kevin, happy to have someone on his side, said, “Fair. Where’s the bathroom?”

Twisting the faucet toward cold made pipes groan and something deeper in the house rattled. As the three watched, air gusted from the tap, dust upon wave of dust coughed out into the sink.

They waited a full minute, one hopeful, one discomforted, one largely indifferent, but no water came.

Neil broke the silence with a, “Looks like we’re moving on.”

It didn’t sound like his usual brand of satisfaction. 

Since that had been the deal, they moved on.  


* * *

  
“Back at the junction, that billboard. The one for Apple. They’re convenient gadgets. I see advertisements for the apps all the time. It’d be useful.”

“We’re not getting phones.”

“Why not? The Masters--” Silence, sharp as a knife and loud as a shot. A swallow. A slow, halting restart. “-- I’ve seen them used before. They’re efficient, especially for maps. I bet we could find someone willing to sell one without a contract.”

“They’re easy to trace.”

Again, silence. Andrew kept his eyes straight ahead.

“Life is easy to trace,” Kevin finally countered, his voice tight. “Us breathing is easy to trace.”

“Kevin,” Neil started, “I didn’t mean it like--”

“You did, though. You always do.”

“We can’t risk phones,” came the final, quiet reply. “At least nothing fancier than a track phone. We’re always together, anyway. What’s it matter?”

Andrew was brutally honest and Neil was carefully reckless, but Kevin was tired, always tired, caught between sleeping and drinking and sleeping and drinking again, his metabolism forcing him through full bottles before he felt comfortably drunk. He couldn’t close his eyes without a drink - if he did, it wasn’t Neil or Andrew’s face that he saw. 

“You run off every chance you get,” he replied, voice mumbling and slurred, “so if anyone, _you_ should have one.”

“If I have one, you’d need one. I can’t call nothing.”

“Andrew could keep it. Since you obviously don’t trust me.”

“Kevin--”

Kevin interrupted him with a too loud, “When are we stopping next?”

They were on winding roads that snaked over cliffs and through tunnels into Utah. There wasn’t much of anything around but trees, rocks, and the occasional startled ram. By the last road sign’s estimate, it would be over an hour before they reached anything but.

“Soon,” Andrew answered him in the quiet to follow. “Lay back and shut your eyes.”

Kevin did, dragging his returned jacket over his head.

Neil turned to look at him, an opinion changing or shifting or forming behind his eyes. Andrew let a little more lead into his foot, their small, dinged up four-door happy to speed down the mountain’s side.

(It wouldn’t be long, he thought. They couldn’t do this forever.)  


* * *

  
Two days into the depths of an endlessly empty stretch of Nevada wilderness, Andrew took them off the main paved road and onto an invitingly rough path. Their car was not meant to go off-road: it bucked and whirred and clanked, its undercarriage scrapped by rocks and sticks and saplings.

“What the hell, Andrew? What’s gotten into you?” Neil snapped, his hand once more a death-grip on the grab-handle.

For the first time in ages, Kevin echoed him with heartfelt agreement. 

The car, for all its protesting, didn’t slow. It managed. Andrew forced it to manage. The road hadn’t been the best, either, but they ran up an incline and then pushed around some brambles and, abruptly, the scenery went from human-friendly to completely wild. 

Just before Kevin lunged to grab the wheel and put a stop to it, Andrew pressed the breaks and killed the engine.

Kevin, attention wholly on the culprit of his rude awakening from the fifth hour of what started as a mid-afternoon nap, snarled, “Andrew, seriously, are you trying to--”

 _Oh_ , Neil’s quick exhale said, which snapped Kevin’s attention over.

Andrew hadn’t known the pool would be there, or that it’d look _that_ inviting, all undisturbed, deep blue glass nestled in a half-crescent cliff, but he’d spied the denser green and taken a gamble. The car’s tension had started to grate. Since he couldn’t throw them out - Neil would possibly break a bone while Kevin would never cease to bitch about it - he took the next best step.

“I’m going to smoke,” Andrew informed Kevin, his lighter waved in front of the shocked man’s face, “and you’re not going to complain about it. We’re going to stay here for a full night,” this to Neil, the lighter flicked on four inches from his nose for one brief, gaseous spark, “and you’re not going to urge us to leave. Everyone clear?”

They nodded.

They were such fools.

(He found he despised them both for different reasons but, in the end, with around the same amount of disdain. And by that, _he meant--_ )

(Nothing. He meant nothing.)

“Good. All the bickering is driving me up the wall. Fuck, kiss, I don’t care, but get it out of your systems before we hit the road again.”

Then he opened his door, very calmly, closed it, again calmly, and went for the shade of one particularly tall tree.

If he strained his ears, he had a decent shot at making out what Kevin and Neil spoke about in the four minutes it took them to follow. He didn’t bother. Kevin stole a kiss when they finally clambered out of the car; Neil ducked his head after, body turned to the pool pointedly, but he didn’t rush off or make a sarcastic insult or do anything else a pissed off Neil liked to do, so Andrew knew then and there that this stop would help alleviate the headache building between them.

As the two inspected the pool and Andrew had his smoke, Kevin made a comment about possible bacteria and their lack of access to proper health care. What he really meant was Neil’s lack of access to proper health care in case of a bacterial infection, but as always (he really believed himself, Andrew thought; it was impressive, stupid, and utterly naive), he spoke as if all three of them were susceptible to the same issues.

Neil said, _huh._

And then he shoved Kevin in.

Luckily, the pool was over waist-deep. 

That didn’t stop Kevin from squawking with indignation when he went down or when he came up, both sides of the plunge of which had Neil grinning and Andrew breathing easier around the smoke in his lungs.  


* * *

  
They had two towels between three of them, one green and one blue, which was fine, as Andrew didn’t plan on dipping in more than his legs. The water was cool, but not freezing. The sun above did its best to warm it, but the underground spring it came from was pure shadow - they found the mouth of what fed into it in the cliff’s side, though it was far too small for anything but Neil’s skinny arm to make it through.

Hands free of anything, Andrew perched on the pool’s rough edge while Neil played keep-away with Kevin’s water-logged shoe. The two had alternated between makeshift self-defense lessons, arguing about the correct technique for one move, a wrestling match wherein Kevin pulled his punches but Neil didn’t mind fighting dirty, and the final stage of drying off in starfish sprawls (Kevin) on Andrew’s left or perching quietly (Neil) on Andrew’s right before they started the process all over again. 

“How about some music?” Kevin asked the deep blue sky on the end of their third rotation of the above mentioned cycle, the afternoon - somehow - only half over.

Andrew raised an eyebrow at him. Neil finally said, “Music?”

“Radio,” Kevin corrected himself, as if the technical word choice was the issue with his request.

“What brought that on?” They played the radio, sure. Mostly BBC, occasionally whatever other station the could pick up. “You don’t mind the waste of battery?”

“It just seems fitting,” Kevin replied with a vague frown, possibly feeling self-conscious. “We always had music at the gym.” Neither Neil nor Andrew budged. Kevin rolled over, heedless of the dirt sticking to his back and arms -- he was down to his boxer-briefs; Neil kept his shirt but also lost his pants; Andrew was not complaining -- and pushed himself up to amble to the car.

Neil watched him go with a blank expression that told Andrew he was about to ask--

“How can he just… think about it like that?” 

There it was. Andrew tilted his head back and contemplated his answer for all of a nanosecond.

“Tetsuji Moriyama,” a small shiver in his fingers forcibly repressed, like an ingrained aversion worked out with rusty tweezers, “practically raised him. What he walked away from was all he’d ever known.”

Neil knew that. Neil knew that like he knew Andrew and Aaron had been signed on at sixteen and whisked off right under their mother’s nose. Neil knew that Andrew had just met his mother and his brother when the fruits of their so-called volunteering returned and Andrew was meant to be a control. Neil knew the Moriyamas had been excited about that, about finding half a pair of twins that met their requirements.

Neil knew Evermore Laboratories had been Kevin’s home, that the number inked on his face had been his worth, his pride, his everything. The second sentinel to live and thrive through the procedure -- what wasn’t to be proud about that? Neil knew what Riko meant to Kevin, both from before their escape and nights Kevin spent glassy eyed and silent on a motel bathroom floor, reeking of alcohol and mumbling rationale, to or for his lost brother.

(Neither could take Kevin on those nights. Either they waited while he threw up all the liquid in his stomach before dragging him to a bed or they dumped him in a cold shower to sober up.)

(Once, within a month of their escape, Neil had insisted on getting the tattoo removed. Kevin had looked as if he’d suggested cutting off the man’s feet.)

(Andrew had almost, almost found his laugh again, but it hadn’t been a happy one: it’d been the breed he foggily recalled laughing on Proust’s favored medication.)

(They covered it with a bandage whenever they went to market or a motel desk or a restaurant or, really, anywhere.)

(Kevin still managed to flinch if he saw himself with it covered.)

(Neil still, Andrew noticed, avoided his own reflection. He had no place to insist Kevin be any better about his tattoo. They were both over-invested, over-sensitive and living with one foot in their past.)

(This was a _digression._ )

Andrew pulled himself back to the moment, to scratchy pop music flipped to polka to country to country to pop to rap to country and, finally, an upbeat language none of them spoke. Spanish, Andrew distantly recognized.

A water-chilled hand nudged against his. He tipped his head forward again, gaze finding Neil.

The coldness had abated. Instead: softened edges and something five degrees into _not okay to be directed at Andrew Minyard._

“Maybe not,” Kevin mused aloud to himself, ducking back into the car to mess with the radio.

“It’s fine,” Neil called to him without glancing away from Andrew. He looked a bit nervous. It was not over Kevin’s taste in music.

Neil could be as much of a fool as Kevin.

Here, there were no walls. Here, there were three pairs of eyes and no cameras. Here, a man could not, it was impossible, for a man to use recordings of Andrew drifting a few inches closer to Kevin Day and speculate on the manifestation of repressed abuse. Here, no stranger would see him brush his fingers through the short, damp hair on the back of Neil Wesninski’s neck and take steps to separate them because Wesninski was Day’s, was all Day’s, any other would jeopardize their prized second-place success.

Neil, it turned out, just wanted a kiss.

He was sometimes a bigger fool than Kevin. Andrew hadn’t thought it possible, but here Neil was: pliant and cool under Andrew’s fingertips and lips, happy with a kiss and nothing more, no grabbing or demanding or guilting. So what if he desired. He always - always - seemed so surprised when Andrew asked for or granted more.

A wet shirt and shorts left nothing to the imagination, either. Andrew wasn’t sure who Neil was trying to fool with keeping his top on- probably whatever party was unlucky enough to try to kill them that day-, but it wouldn’t be the ones whose eyes were better than most specialized cameras. 

“Hey,” the music man said. “We’re supposed to practice wrist-grabs.”

Neil murmured, “Oh,” and, “Right,” and, “Ammdrewhh?”

Swallowing his own name didn’t taste as good as triple chocolate fudge brownie ice cream, but it was up there.

He dropped his hand from Neil’s neck and pulled back. Neil licked his lips once, twice, three times. 

Kevin cleared his throat.

“Right _now?_ ” Neil demanded. The effect was ruined when he had to clear his throat to be steady.

“Right now.”

Kevin with a goal was an impressively willful creature.

Neil ran a hand through his hair and glanced to Andrew.

Andrew waved them both off, sitting back on his hands to enjoy the show. Maybe disappointment flared, maybe heat thrummed in his veins, but the self-denial was much sweeter when he knew it wouldn’t last forever.

(Private, _private_ , contained, this was just them, if anyone else looked he would gouge their eyes out himself.)

They had no reason to practice wrist-grabs and breaks in the water. Kevin had no reason to twist and hold Neil on lock-down as long as he did, slick skin pressed against slick skin, Neil’s chest heaving and arms straining as he gave a token struggle he knew he had no chance in breaking. Kevin’s shorts, rather like Neil’s, hid nothing.

Kevin, poised like that (in part to piss Neil off at being taken lightly-- it worked), offered to practice with Andrew.

Andrew said, “Ask me again tonight.”

Kevin accepted that.

Neil, who was not ever above playing dirty but who also rarely thought with his body’s effects, quit struggling with his upper body and instead pushed his hips back. Kevin’s grip loosened for one precious second, eyes hooding. 

Neil turned his height on him and dunked him.  


* * *

  
The world was never still or quiet or controlled, but it could be narrowed. 

They took dinner on the car’s hood, Neil leaning back against the windshield while Andrew and Kevin each popped a hip against the front fenders. 

Once he’d finished his tomato, lettuce and turkey packed sandwich, Kevin asked Andrew if he’d be willing to practice. Matched strength to matched strength. 

Andrew replied that he’d rather cut to the chase. 

“You’re going to get out of shape,” Kevin said, though he’d straightened up at the implication. “Without consistent gym access on top of missed practice, you’ll lose your edge.”

Neil made a noise akin to _pshaw_ on the car’s hood, hopelessly amused and happy that he, for once, was not on the receiving end of Kevin’s reminders.

“One more second of muscle talk,” Andrew warned him, head tilting up toward Kevin’s, “and we’ll see who’s down a night of practice.”

Kevin considered the options. Insisting on Andrew keeping to a regime was tempting, but in the middle of the nowhere, Nevada, there wasn’t much to help his claims. 

When Andrew dragged him down by the shoulder, he definitely didn’t protest.  


* * *

  
If Neil was an open door, acceptance and invitation and curiousity without pressure, Kevin was the shove from behind to move through it. Neil liked kissing, he liked exploring. Kevin liked leaving marks, he liked fighting. Neil liked being challenged. Kevin liked challenging. 

Andrew liked them together.

He liked Neil, unbroken and unbowed, with his head tipped back on Andrew’s shoulder as Kevin mouthed at the hollow of his throat, nails dragged down his sides and thumbs dug into his hip bones. He liked how Neil shivered and shifted against him while Kevin dropped lower, his shoes and then knees scuffing in the dirt. He liked how Neil tangled his fingers in Kevin’s hair and, when Kevin drew a line from root to tip with his tongue before hollowing his cheeks around the crown, how Neil’s fingers tightened and pulled for Kevin to take more, to move faster, to match him.

He liked to curl hands around Neil’s hips and keep him from thrusting into Kevin’s mouth, he liked the bit-off protest and how much harder he pressed back when Andrew ground his forward. He liked the sounds of Kevin working Neil over, and, when he hooked his chin over Neil’s shoulder to look down, the sight of Kevin’s lips stretched around Neil and the spit leftover from every messy, wanting fuck in and slide out. 

He liked saying, “ _Kevin,_ ” loud enough for Neil to hear and how, in response, Kevin’s near-all-black eyes rose to catch his and the mournful noise he made when Andrew continued with, “Drop your hand,” and he did, a little slower than Neil would have but he did, the hand he had been using on himself instead reaching back to wrap around Andrew’s calves, bracketing Neil’s in between.

Andrew liked it slow. He preferred making them fall apart; he wanted to draw it out, make it last, burn into body and mind that they were his, that he could let them fall but never would. No one living would deny the pleasure in the finish, but if he had the time and place, he’d take Neil or Kevin or both and turn their paranoia and regret and shame and fear inside out. 

It never lasted forever. It didn’t need to. 

It _happened_ , it could happen, it would happen, it was nothing that had happened before in Andrew’s life. They’d carved this out for themselves. They’d fought tooth and nail, bled, screamed, _survived_ , for this.

The world never needed narrowing for Andrew. His had grown tenfold in just as many years, and it _burned_ , to think what he had in his hands. Trust and belief and the challenge to be better; acceptance and affection and the one who stayed.

On the day-to-day, it exhausted him. They exhausted him. They had so much life to them, it spilled over onto him, and it scalded him to the very marrow.

Sometimes, whether with them or without, writ upon his bone and engraved in his mind, he remembered: jeering. He remembered: leering. He remembered: realizing what those words meant when aimed at a boy of ten years, Cass's _everything_ coming at a high price. One he had paid until the stakes were raised with a brother never meant to exist.

(He remembered years on months on days before that, too. In truth, his body remembered it better than his mind; for all his perfect memory, Evermore had a way of making it seem as if there had never been a _before._ )

(Laid out on flat, cold steel with Proust at his side -- with Proust on him -- with Proust in him, _not like before,_ so the doctor claimed, _these are just fingers, come now, you're overreacting, your vitals are a mess, how will you ever be field ready like this_ \-- it, that, he. _They_ divided Andrew into smaller and smaller pieces, categorized and measured and documented until he was nothing but a number and stats.)

(Once upon a time, he'd thought that was better. Not Proust, no. But the straight-forward nature of Evermore, lacking in standards and full of human nature the same as everywhere else, at least had predictability. It was the same with juvie.)

( _At least it's predictable._ This action, this reaction. Simple. Clean. Controllable, to a point. Constrained to _we need him alive_ , otherwise.)

(Drake and those before him had no rules, no constraints, nothing predictable beyond what they were.)

(What they were was human.)

(What Andrew had become was not. That mask, it... helped.)

(It didn't fix, just as Bee hadn't been able to _fix_ , but then, Andrew wasn't sure how much of _him_ was leftover _to_ fix. Neil and Kevin seemed to think there was enough, but they weren't in his head. They hadn't seen what he had. He hadn't, and wouldn't, let them, for all their sakes.)

He liked them together.

Neil gasped, one hand in Kevin’s hair and the other gripping Andrew’s, “I-- I, Kevin, pull back,” because even if he rarely asked anything with Kevin he’d learned from Andrew and, really, it gave a perfect beginning to Kevin swallowing him all the way down, nose pressed into dark, curly hair. Neil’s breath shuddered out of him, shoulders bunching and face turned into Andrew’s neck as he rode out his orgasm, hips spasming under Andrew’s hands.

Finally pulling back, Kevin swallowed, then spat, the back of his hand dragged across his mouth. Andrew snorted at him. 

A life on the run was surprisingly conducive to their sex lives. Maybe that shouldn’t have been a surprise - all they had for distractions was each other. In any case, they’d had time to practice. When Kevin stood on slightly shaky legs, using Andrew’s wrists (still anchored to Neil) to draw himself up, body one long uncoiled line unspooled against Neil, he knew what he was asking.

First he pressed a kiss to the corner of Neil’s mouth, which opened blue eyes and turned his face away from Andrew’s neck. Second he shifted to angle one for Andrew’s cheek, quick and chaste and light, which was ridiculous and stupid and obnoxiously off-target of him, so Andrew corrected the problem himself.

Things rarely felt hyper-sensitive or _too much_ these days, what with Neil in reach and no one running them ragged. But sometimes, like when Andrew had Kevin’s jaw between his fingers and tongue in his mouth, oversensitivity made a comeback. The difference was: it wasn’t limited to unpleasant experiences.

“Andrew,” Neil broke in, sandwiched between them and undoubtedly overwhelmed but he was good, he was so good, arms loosely looped around Kevin, relaxed and pliant and whole and _here_ and saying things like, “are you going to fuck him?”

An interested hitch in Kevin’s throat. Heat thrummed under his skin, his and Andrew’s and Neil’s, all one in the same. 

“He’d like that,” Neil continued. His hands dropped out of Andrew’s immediate sight, Kevin’s eyes and nose and jaw blocking him from following; but by the sound Kevin made against his mouth, he didn’t need to see to guess. “Bet you’d like that.”

Neil was a manipulative, mouthy little shit.

But he wasn’t wrong.  


* * *

  
Neil was breakable.

He wasn’t _delicate._ He wasn’t fragile. He was breakable by virtue of unenhanced genetics and, no matter how he trained, not possessing the natural capability to catch up with man-made science’s direct intervention.

A motel in Oklahoma, a room rented over a bar in San Diego, a Dodge’s backseat, a tree and, more than a few times, over a kitchen counter: Kevin had worked Neil open with fingers, lube and tongue, and taken the risk. So far, so good - no broken bones, no accidentally snapped wrists, no blood on Neil’s thighs. More often it was the other way around, though developed preference lowered the chance. It wasn’t a pity or a frustration -- that they even had the time or space to find preferences at their own pace was incredible enough.

During that time, Andrew had enjoyed his mouth on Neil’s, Neil’s mouth on his; his hands around Kevin, Kevin’s hands around his. He wouldn’t let either of them around his backside even as he reached for theirs, and they respected it.

But he’d watched and enjoyed and admired them together enough to know: for all they tried, Kevin held back. Neil’s body, unlike his mind, was breakable. It was a tragic thing to see something so strong wrapped up in something so weak, but there wasn’t anything to do be done about it.

 _I’m not weak,_ he’d mutter into his arms or pillow after Kevin’s hand had stalled along his back or Andrew’s eyes slid away before incrimination, _it’s only in comparison._

True.

As Neil only had them to compare against, however, it didn’t much matter.

When Andrew told him to keep his hands back and Kevin obliged in, his legs already wrapped tight around Andrew’s waist, there wasn’t any worry about broken bones or dislocated shoulders. Inconsistencies with gym and exercise routines or not, Kevin was hard muscle and pure, raw durability. Andrew matched him, maybe beat him, built as he was for nothing but carefully controlled power.

He took Kevin against the car’s hood, the thin metal dipping under them. He took him slow, though Kevin urged him faster with hissed demands and heels digging into Andrew’s back. The encouragement was unnecessary: he’d imagined-- dreamed of- _wanted_ it so often underground, wanted him against the wall, in the gym, in the ring, every time he looked to him for guidance and assurance and without even thinking he might leave, “Fucking _hell_ , Andrew,” and Andrew did what else he’d always wanted to and shut him up with a kiss.

He wasn’t so far gone (he’d never be so far gone) as to miss the appreciative noise Neil made. It drew Andrew and Kevin’s attention apart from one another and to the one leaning heavily against the car door, his eyes hooded and smile-- stupid. Stupid Neil, stupid, suicidal Neil. Kevin breathed his name, two barely coherent gasps; Andrew’s eyes dropped back to him, his hair a mess and expression equally stupid, distracted and affectionate, and so he curled a hand around the cock heavy on his stomach and enjoyed the startled huff it bought him. 

Really. Kevin teased Neil on a fast finish, but he never lasted long under Andrew.

To be fair (Andrew tried to be), the clenching heat and bit-off curse Kevin gave him had him following not too long after.  


* * *

  
The pool was a convenient way to clean off.

The sturdier and clear trunk top, too, offered a convenient spot to dry off.

They sat with a hair’s breadth between them, the cooler night air raising gooseflesh on their arms. Without a breeze, the time spent was - to Neil’s ears - close to silence, the spaces between them companionable and, for the first time in what struck him as an age, relaxed. That he hadn’t noticed the tension before it left was most probably a product of denial. 

As Andrew said, there was nothing to be done about the past. And for this night, he refused to let himself fall into worries for the future. 

Even feeling like a happy puddle in human form, the plan to ignore possible anxieties became very difficult to follow when Andrew and Kevin’s heads both snapped to their right.

In the silence: the whispery sighs that Neil associated with them talking too low for him to hear. To stave off the first curls of panic, Neil quietly asked Kevin in French (Andrew had been learning bits and pieces of the language as they went; his accent was horrendous, mostly because he didn’t try to fix it), “What is it?”

“Not human,’ Kevin answered, which wasn’t as comforting as it should have been. After all, the two sitting beside him weren’t human.

Andrew took a deep breath through his nose. Kevin tilted his head, one ear moved to better catch the sound.

Neil waited and ticked off the seconds as his grip on relaxation crumbled.

(It kept them alive and free. It was fine. _It was fine._ )

“Car,” Kevin suddenly said, voice worried. “Get in the car.”

He didn’t have to say it twice. Neil had been off the trunk and moving for the passenger door by the first syllable. Andrew and Kevin didn’t beat him in - by intention, he was sure -, though they followed within seconds. 

“Start up the engine,” he snapped at Andrew, eyes wide as Andrew, instead, just -- sat there, his head turned toward the window and hands loose around the wheel.

“As long as we’re in here,” he said, collected as ever, “we’re fine.”

Neil boggled at him. “What? How?”

“It might be gone,” Kevin said from the back. He sounded more worried.

“I doubt it. It smelled sick. It’s probably crawling with bugs.”

Neil demanded, “ _What_ might be gone?”

Then he craned his neck to follow Andrew’s gaze and thought he saw it.

It definitely was sick: its skin clung to its bones, fur matted and stomach hollow. Its tongue, blackened at the end, hung far out of its mouth, the moonlight failing to hide how yellowed its teeth were. It looked ravenous. It _was_ , by how it eyed their vehicle and sniffed warily at the air for all of a second before slinking toward the turkey Kevin had left out next to the front wheel, starving.

It’d smelled their picnic and decided to take a chance.

“A coyote,” Neil said. Kevin looked toward him, still a bit jumpy. Neil looked back, thoroughly unimpressed (but also terribly, horrifyingly relieved). “You had us run from a mangy coyote.”

Kevin found his pride and stiffened up his voice. The show didn’t make Neil forget how borderline stressed he’d looked getting into the car. “How was I supposed to know what it was? It could’ve been a big dog. It could’ve been a wolf.”

“You could break it in half with your pinky finger.”

Kevin scowled. “I’d need a full hand, _at least._ ”

“You forgot to put away the turkey,” Andrew observed. He sounded, in the up-lift to his words and slightly warmer tone, somewhat amused. “That was our last package. We’re going to have to stop at the next Wal-Mart.”

“Whole Foods,” Kevin immediately shot back. “And why’s this my fault? You two distracted me.”

Neil and Andrew shared a look. Neil’s was bemused. Both of them liked how Kevin caught sight of it and sputtered.

“I’m not sleeping outside with that thing roaming around,” he insisted, pulling down the back seat to get at the (singular) blanket in the trunk. “I’ll sleep here.”

“It’s just a coyote,” Neil reminded him, not bothering to hide how ridiculous he thought Kevin was being.

Kevin ignored him in favor of stretching out as much as he could (he really couldn’t) along the backseat, his legs curled up awkwardly and arms crossed uncomfortably over his chest.

Andrew huffed (his version of a laugh), hit the lock button for the doors a good deal too late, and reclined his seat as far as it would go. It took a bit of shifting, Kevin’s legs needing to lay side-ways lest they were crushed, but eventually, both parties settled down.

Really, it was telling that neither of them were willing to fight with the wildlife for a chance at sleeping under the stars.

Neil eyed them both. If he looked at the tight feeling between his ribs and the pull under his skin, he understood what he wanted to do was curl up on or between them, to lay out in the open or in a bed or in the grass or anywhere but in their cramped, old car. 

For tonight and most nights, that simply wasn’t possible.

Further in, he wanted something dangerous: he wanted a place to stay with the people who mattered. 

For all nights, that wasn’t possible.

He reminded himself of their freedom and the entire day spent together. 

It was worth it. It was all worth it.  


* * *

  
His neck and aching back in the morning didn’t agree with him that it was worth it.

But then they were pulling away from the pool in the dawn’s early light, leaving behind a ripped and emptied package of turkey and nothing else, Kevin pulling out his book to tick off time, and the road’s monotonous stretch flattened any thoughts beyond their next destination and what they needed next to survive from Neil’s mind.

It was fine. After his mother’s death six years previous, he’d done the same thing, only alone. The first time he decided not to, when he’d taken a chance at a life after he settled into Millport and found the local club had an opening for their Exy line-up, was the first time he’d been caught. 

It would also be the last. It _had to._

Running was better with Kevin and Andrew. It was much, much better.

_It was all worth it._  


* * *

  
(He’d once thought his mother cold for uprooting them at the slightest sign of trouble and warning him off from attachments to anything or anyone.)

(Now, he understood. She’d had him to protect. Just like he had them.)

(If it meant protecting them, if it meant not being alone, he’d cut out his heart himself. It wasn’t a paradox -- it was necessary.)  


* * *

  
“This is becoming a problem,” Neil muttered as Andrew dragged Kevin, weakly moaning and too pale, cheeks almost yellow, into the inn’s cracked tub. Neil stopped at the doorway, his knuckles white around the frame. “He needs to get it under control.”

Andrew set Kevin against the tub’s backboard. He wasn’t usually gentle about it, but tonight, he was. That, combined with how he failed to respond to Neil’s comment, told Neil enough about how much worse Kevin stank to a sentinel’s nose. They’d pulled him out of the bar’s corner once they’d realized he’d been drinking glasses the bartender had mistakenly poured for Neil; twenty minutes later, he’d insisted he was fine enough to go back down and then tripped on his own feet and cracked his head into the window sill. 

The gash over his eyebrow continued to bleed, the bright red slow as sludge but fairly thin. 

Andrew gave his cheek a light tap. Kevin’s eyes fluttered open, struggled to focus, and then closed, his head rolling forward to hang onto his chest. Just like that, he was out.

They couldn’t take him to the hospital. They shouldn’t have _had to_ \-- how big was their bar tab? It took two full bottles of Jack to get Kevin drunk enough to be sick. This went beyond sick. There was no way he’d remember the night; he would be lucky to walk up and remember his own name.

Did pharmacies sell detox drugs? Were there detox drugs, or was it more of a stomach pump and bed rest with fluids? Neil didn’t know. Of his many issues, alcoholism had never been one.

“You’re not helping,” Andrew said, voice unusually soft. It was more to keep Kevin from waking than any real emotion, Neil thought, though he also thought a meteor crashing through their bathroom wall wouldn’t wake Kevin Day.

“He’s the one who drank enough to fall a horse,” Neil retorted, and immediately regretted it.

Andrew didn’t dignify it with a response, which made him feel worse. He simply looked over his shoulder and held Neil’s gaze. Face blank, he was accusing enough with his eyes alone.

He tried to think of something to say and, for once, found nothing.

The staring contest ended with Neil looking away. From his periphery, he saw Andrew turn back to Kevin, his fingers pressing to the pulse at his wrist.

“He has a few bottles in the car,” Neil finally thought to say, scrabbling for something to _do_. “I’ll pour them out. If we don’t let him at the money and don’t send him for groceries alone--”

“That isn’t the problem,” Andrew cut in.

“Really?” Neil snapped. “Him drinking himself into an early grave seems like the issue to me. Unless you mean that his issue is thinking about-- _Riko Moriyama,_ in which case, there’s nothing we can do about that.”

“It isn’t just Riko,” Andrew replied, irritation edging into his voice. That wasn’t good, Neil’s mind told him. If he could hear Andrew’s irritation, that really wasn’t good. But he hadn’t and he wouldn’t let Andrew Minyard intimidate him, he-- no, no, god, wait, what was he _thinking?_ He needed to listen. He-- “He’s just the most obvious about it.”

Usually, Neil and Andrew were on the same wavelength. This time, he couldn’t have felt more out of tune. Finally, after Andrew dropped Kevin’s wrist and smoothed back damp hair from a sweat-drenched forehead, Neil asked, “About what?” 

“If I have to tell you,” his tone even softer, Neil straining to catch it, “then it won’t matter.”

“You said it yourself that I can be an idiot.”

“Not that you can be. You are.”

Taking in Kevin’s shallow breathing and the red, red gash over his eyebrow, Neil struggled to swallow the flare of anger. He would be calm. He would listen. He would try, at least. “Andrew. Help me understand.”

“We can’t keep living like this,” was his answer. “It’s only a matter of time before Kevin chooses the Moriyamas over the bottle. The only reason he hasn’t is because he knows Riko wouldn’t be there even if he returned. Sooner or later, he’ll wise up and start to blame us for putting him in that position.”

The air between them sagged under Andrew’s words, but it wasn’t tension or fear that filled the room. What it was instead was what Neil asked for: understanding. 

The tension had been easier to deal with.

“One day, you’re going to run and not come back.”

At least he knew how to argue, “I wouldn’t.”

“Part of you already has.” Andrew returned, conviction unshaken. “I don’t know what you were like before you showed up to Evermore. But I know you were more of a person while you fought to escape than you are now, running toward nothing.”

Neil expected to feel anger at that. He did, a little, in a distant, detached way. But it wasn’t enough to get him started on a protest.

Rather, he asked, “What about you? Are you burning out?”

One hand resting against Kevin’s pulse-point, Andrew took his time in answering.

“I promised I’d watch your backs. That we would never be under their control again.” He had. Neil hadn’t thought too much of it, too wrapped up in escaping and figuring out how to flee with two extra people. The way Andrew spoke, calm and assured, told him he should’ve paid more attention. “If that means stopping Kevin from turning himself in, so be it. If that means stopping you from chasing him into it, so be it. I won’t go back on my word.”

And outside of them, what did Andrew have left? A brother he couldn’t reach and a world that he didn’t want.

Neil understood.

Andrew sat back on his heels, hand dropping from Kevin’s neck. While he reached for the shower’s tap, he ordered, “Get me some water for him.”

They only had the motel’s plastic, disposable cups, but Neil did.  


* * *

  
Kevin woke up under the shower’s cold spray. He faded in and out of consciousness through the night, waking fully only to throw up -- the first time by Andrew’s fingers down his throat, the rest by himself -- into the bathroom’s floor and toilet.

If tears and snot made an appearance to mix with the vomit, it was probably from an over-stimulation of the gag reflex. Probably.

He eventually passed out for good and they levered him onto a bed, Andrew and Neil taking the one across from his in tense silence.

He didn’t wake again until the morning, his voice thin and wrung, his body uncooperative and his head pounding, which was all Neil could have hoped for and, as always, all Andrew needed.  


* * *

  
The next town over had a spring art fair that featured, to Kevin’s great interest and his companions’ bemusement, an entire parking lot filled with local farmers selling berries and in-season produce. They had to parallel park the car three blocks down from the fair’s outskirts, but Kevin didn’t care, _they were going._ They could say what they wanted about Evermore, he groused, but at least they’d fed them right.

Neil didn’t share a glance with Andrew at the off-hand mention. Now it crawled into the back of his mind as a reminder of what Kevin teetered on.

People crowded the fair. Andrew kept Neil and Kevin directly in front of him, though he looked bored of every bright piece of pottery and fanciful hand-painted bauble they passed. Finally they made it to the farmer’s square and Kevin, after purchasing warm cider, began his rounds. Clerks knew his type: no matter how begrudgingly respectful he was to their work, his pickiness and critical distaste over the slightest blemishes in any produce made every exchange terse.

Going by the biting comments he gave other, grabbier customers and permanent scowl on his face at every new booth and its new batch of disappointments, you’d think he hated the whole experience.

But as Neil watched (bored himself, despite the chance to stretch his legs in the sun), he thought: _for someone who hadn’t even known what a farmer’s market was beyond a theoretical concept until a handful of months ago, he sure loved them._

“Before we leave,” Neil said afterward, evening creeping in and the booths closing in time with the sun, “I saw an electronics store on our way in. It wouldn’t hurt to have a few phones between us in case we ever get separated.”

Arms laden with two massive plastic bags, Kevin eyed him like he expected a trick. Neil tried not to feel irritated at the suspicion.

Andrew breezed by with, “It’s probably closing like everything else in this dingy town. Pick up your feet if you want to make it in time.”

Fortunately, it ran two hours later than the market.

By the time they returned to the car, they had enough fruit, berries, vegetables and organic honey to last them a month (at least until the food rotted -- so far, with the sentinels’ quick metabolism, they’d never had that problem). They also had three new track phones: one blue, one black, and one grey.  


* * *

  
By Andrew seeing a sign for vacancy and turning the wheel in that direction, they stopped for the night in a near-by campground. There were trailers to rent on site, which was what they took, unloading their duffel bags and Kevin’s fresh foods onto dusty countertops that smelled more like the outdoors than anything else. The campground itself was quiet and still, wildlife scared off by now-dead fires and people sleeping early without anything else to do in the dark. 

It was too late to do much more than drop onto the thin mattress. They had to bring in their singular blanket to be their singular cover, but they made due: Andrew with his back against the plastic wall, Neil turned toward him and Kevin with an arm over Neil’s side, his face pressed between thin shoulder blades.

In the morning, Neil went for an unannounced run. The usual.

He returned within an hour and invited them to join him. There were nice paths up the hills, he said. 

This time, Andrew was the one to regard him with suspicion.

He blanked his face, felt no anger or indignation, and looked back.

Kevin was happy to explore as a unit. He was even happier when Andrew put in an effort to keep up and, though it took ten minutes of smashing through a barely maintained trail to realize, push him to run faster. They always looped back to Neil before they were out of eyesight or earshot, but it was nice. It was different.

They returned to fresh strawberries and blueberries. Andrew offered a forkful of his (homemade by a Greek immigrant, or so she claimed) baklava to Neil and then, when Kevin made a curious noise, another forkful to him. When Kevin followed it up with another, more invested noise, Andrew drew back to the kitchenette’s corner, baklava covered by his hand, and told him he shouldn’t have been such a snob when he had the chance to get his own.

Neil laughed. Kevin decided he’d chase the flavor through Neil’s mouth.  


* * *

  
“What did you do?” 

Neil stirred from his place on Kevin’s chest, his head lifting and eyes blinking sleepily once, twice, before clearing into sharpened awareness.

Kevin was slower to wake, but fell much more gracefully from sleep to wakefulness. His eyes flicked between Neil and Andrew. He didn’t, otherwise, interrupt.

At the mattress’s edge, Andrew had Neil’s grey phone in hand, its out-dated screen opened to the recent calls page. The number on it - an out-going call - was unfamiliar, a string unsaved and unnamed.

“It isn’t who you’re thinking,” Neil finally responded, voice quiet. He sat up, shifting off Kevin to dangle his legs over the bed’s edge.

Andrew’s head cocked. It wasn’t a friendly motion. “Who am I thinking of?” 

“I called my uncle. Not the Moriyamas.”

Kevin tensed. Andrew, in one smooth motion too fast for Neil’s eye to follow, snapped a hand out and around Neil’s throat, thumb pressed under his adam’s apple.

“ _What,_ ” Andrew asked, deadly calm, grip light but promising violence, “was the emergency?”

The bed creaked as Kevin sat up, his hands flexing on his legs as he looked torn between letting Andrew go and getting the hand off Neil’s neck. Fortunately for his stress levels, Neil made the decision for him when he tilted his chin up, giving Andrew even better access for wringing his neck, and immediately answered, “We won’t have to use the identities Abby and Wymack gave us. He told me who to pay for new papers.”

“Why?” Kevin asked, the word squeezed out between clenched teeth.

Andrew added a hint of pressure when Neil stalled. Swallowing hard and reflexive against it, he at last elaborated with, “We could find somewhere to stay. A house to put our names on. Maybe a job.”

Disbelief on his face and coating his words, Kevin asked, “Since when did you start wanting to settle down?” 

Neil shrugged, an uncomfortable gesture (as most gestures were) with the hand still at his throat. 

Blue unwavering from hazel, he asked, voice a mite strained, “Could you let go?”

“Your uncle’s tied to the Moriyamas.” Andrew replied, not letting go. “Isn’t he?”

Neil didn’t answer.

Vehement, hand covering his eyes, Kevin cursed.

“He’s part of the British mob,” Neil finally said. “I don’t know for sure if he has any deals with the Moriyamas.”

“That’s a big gamble for a few new names.”

Neil shrugged again.

“Fuck,” Kevin said. “ _Fuck._ ” Again, again, with varying degrees of distress.

“He wanted to keep me talking,” Neil said.

“He was tracking your location,” Andrew shot back. “Matching your voice to the records.”

“I didn’t agree to him doing the paperwork. He wasn’t lying about the process.”

“How would you know? You don’t even know who he works for.”

“With the funds we have, it won’t take long.”

“Even if he was unconnected to the Moriyamas, we have a pretty bounty on our heads. Anyone with an eye on their finances would be tempted by it.”

“I said I was alone.”

“ _They wouldn’t believe you._ ”

“What do you want, Andrew?” Neil finally snarled, his fingers curling around the sentinel’s wrist. In the trailer’s privacy, he wasn’t wearing his customary bands or long sleeves, but his skin was still the unnatural paleness of someone untouched by the sun; Neil didn’t take the time to compare just how much tanner his own skin looked. “You told me we couldn’t keep living like this. I’m taking steps so we don’t have to.”

“I didn’t tell you to lead them to our doorstep,” Andrew hissed back, his knees knocking into Neil’s as he crowded forward. “In fact, I remember telling you to do the opposite. I warned you what would happen if you did bring them here.”

“Andrew,” Kevin pleaded, internal alarm bells winning over logic, “let go of Neil.”

In response, Andrew’s voice became a cold, detached thing, a demand made of abrupt, crushing apathy and no shred of patience: “You’re going to tell us everything about your father, your mother, and your uncle. We know about one half of the group following us; it’s time for you to tell us about the other.”

“Let go,” Neil breathed, shoulders back, eyes hard and anxiety curling in every crease of his mouth and brow and choked bob of his adam’s apple against Andrew’s hand, “and I will.”

Andrew considered him. Kevin didn’t dare move.

Finally, he let go, stepping back to sit on the stove’s black edge.

He didn’t have a knife in hand, but he didn’t need one to emphasis the cut his teeth made as he bared them. “Start talking, Wesninski,”  


* * *

  
Neil told them everything.

From the Butcher of Baltimore’s partnership with the Moriyamas to his mother’s escape and, beyond that, what he knew of his uncle, he laid it out for them both. By the end, he had described the origin of each scar on his chest. By the end, he confessed that, yes, half the trouble that dogged their heels couldn’t be just from the Moriyamas. His father, acquitted and back in good social graces, had been throwing in his men as well. They were interchangeable. 

Kevin didn’t leave his side, though he said nothing. Andrew acted as his mouthpiece, body similarly still.

By the end, Neil proposed his plan. 

They would stay in the campground one more night. It went against everything in Neil’s gut, but if his uncle wasn’t trustworthy, Andrew said, they needed to know. 

He also refused to run. Not if the dogs were that close; if they thought they had them cornered, he’d be the one to end their game.

Kevin avoided their eyes, an unspoken question bleeding from his edges.

Andrew pressed their foreheads together, his hands wrapped tight in Kevin’s hair. _You won’t have to face them,_ he promised, words as branding as a hot iron against skin. _As long as you stay, I’ll fight for you._

 

They didn’t sleep well, the windows opened a crack to let in air, hunting knives under their pillows and their bags packed into the car just in case, but they stayed.  


* * *

  
By the morning, Kevin bolted out of sleep and out of Neil’s arms.

A breeze ruffled the window’s tacky, blue-and-tan patterned curtains. Kevin took a deep breathe of it, his head turned northward.

“It’s Jackson,” he whispered, audible from panic rather than intention. Andrew’s eyes caught the soft light gathered in the trailer and sharpened it into something lethal, his hand moving under his pillow for a blade. Neil, who had slept on the edge and not next to him, stiffened. He remembered Jackson. He remembered Romero. He remembered being run down in an old gas station, the knife to his neck and _nice seeing you without your hulking shadow, junior. Lola missed you, you know that? I’ll have to make up for her not being here._ “He’s not alone. There’s at least two traveling with him.”

Pointedly, Andrew stretched and yawned. Kevin practically vibrated out of his skin with anxiety. It was, Neil though, better than when he fell into resignation.

“Your uncle’s a smart man,” Andrew murmured into Neil’s ear as they laced up their shoes. “He must be enjoying quite the reward for handing over our location. Maybe he’ll take a vacation somewhere sunny.”

“Or he works for them,” Neil responded, neutral.

“Either way,” a whisper that shivered into his skull, Andrew’s cheek pressed briefly against Neil’s, “you won’t be too sad when I tear out his tongue, will you?”

“I doubt he’s here.”

“It shakes things up to have something to look forward to.” Fingers cupped the back of his skull, a dry kiss laid on his forehead. “We had to go to Europe eventually. Will your papers be good enough to get us a passport?”

Neil grasped Andrew’s shirt front, voice forcibly light as he grounded himself. “There’s other ways to enter a foreign country. Not easier, but quieter.”

“Quiet’s so boring.” He reached over and up, snagging Kevin around the arm and making him stoop for his own forehead kiss, a there-and-gone mark meant to transfer a smidgen more confidence. “Good luck to us.”

“We’ll need it,” Kevin agreed.

Andrew grinned, eyes wide. After a moment, Neil matched it.

“So will they.”  


* * *

  
They’d been found twice, but both times, they’d managed to wiggle their way out without a direct confrontation. One had involved an involved car chase through quiet suburbs. One had meant the three of them hiding in a barn’s mite-filled loft for twelve hours. Both had left a sour taste behind, fear thick and tension smothering for days after. 

This was different. They were surrounded. This was an _operation_ , a planned snare, the very same Kevin and Neil had attempted on Renee Walker, only with thrice the man-power for twice the gain.

Jackson, Romero, and _Lola_ , a woman Neil identified on sight. They were the front-runners, intentionally stepping upwind to draw Andrew and Kevin out. When they left the trailer, all three were visible, slouched around a tent that couldn’t possibly belong to them.

It was so obvious it was almost insulting.

And yet, it almost worked. Kevin froze, and adrenaline flooded Neil, begging him to turn and run. If he did, he knew, he’d be netted immediately; even if Andrew and Kevin didn’t follow him to their own capture, they wouldn’t last long fleeing on their own. Not without a network of regular human to watch their backs.

“Hey, boys,” Jackson called when Andrew cut out the staring contest and made his way across the road to the other campsite. Kevin and Neil, against their better judgment, followed, their reflex to stay close pushing them forward. “Good seeing you again. Be nice and calm, now. This doesn’t have to hurt.”

“You don’t have to lie,” Neil replied, somehow stable.

Jackson shoved his hands into his pockets and hummed. “I was trying to be friendly. Alright, fine. This doesn’t have to hurt _right now._ ”

Andrew stopped at the edge of their campsite, Kevin and Neil stopping behind him. Romero straightened from his slouch - at this side, Lola smiled, all teeth.

“You really picked ‘em, junior,” she cooed. “Or, wait. They really picked you. I heard that’s how it works. Pretty creepy. You should’ve stuck around to be one of them rather than their lap dog.”

“Big words from someone who cuts up small boys for fun,” Andrew drawled, “and jumps whenever her master snaps his fingers.”

She smiled wider. “So it’s true, you’re both stuck with him. Huh. That’s a pity.”

They didn’t reply. 

She continued anyway. “I’m sure it’s going to be hell for them to find a double replacement, but far as the record goes, you’re useless outside of the lab, Minyard. I imagine they’ll find you a nice steel table to bleed on until your miserable life runs out, whenever that is. Day’s the only real disappointment here.”

“Are you finished?” Andrew asked, bored.

“Oh, honey,” she laughed, “I’m just starting.”

Andrew inclined his head as if to tell her to go on.

Neil rocketed from his side, dashing toward the black car.

Jackson pulled his hand, which pulled a gun, from his pocket, took aim, and snarled when Romero shoved him off-target as he pulled the trigger. The bullet tore into the sky, missing Kevin - who had moved alongside Neil - by an inch.

“Idiot!” He snarled even as he pulled his own weapon, smaller and not quite as lethal, “Don’t shoot the merchandise.”

Bearing down on the distracted duo within two heart beats, Andrew bared his teeth in a grin. _Just as he’d thought._

Lola rounded on him with a Taser, but by then, Andrew had a meat shield named Romero to work with, and Neil was in the - _underestimated us, didn’t you?_ \- unlocked car.

Unlocked and heavily armored - Kevin recognized the brand. Bullets wouldn’t pierce its siding or windows without passionate repetition. Inside, Neil ducked under the headboard, out of sight of any snipers or near-by operatives and set immediately on rewiring the controls. 

Their breakable companion out of harm’s way, the sentinels let hell break loose.  


* * *

  
They ditched the newly dented black car one town over, shouldering their packs and hoofing it to a nearby trailer park. A few faces peered out of windows and between blinds at the three blood-streaked (one limping) figures striding down the narrow street, but none except the owner of the beaten-up red truck they stopped at dared to venture out.

The truck owner, voice shaking and body half-hidden by her door, informed them they’d have to pay for that if they wanted it. “There’s no buses ‘round here, how’m I supposed to get to work?”

“What’s its price?” The least bloody one asked.

“Enough for a better one,” she answered.

“What’s wrong with this one?”

“The breaks’re going. Been feeding it more fluid, but it doesn’t hold. Probably needs a full replacement. You think I have time for that? Or the money? It’s over a thousand for a good mechanic.”

The red-head dug into his duffel bag as he walked toward her. She shut her door to a terrified crack, her knees shaking jelly. A busted up truck was not worth dying over. She just-- she just, was sick of men running off with her things, was all. She told them as much. She sounded a little angrier, a little more like her usual self. 

He shoved a wad of green at her.

“That’s about ten thousand,” he mused, hand scratching at his neck. There was a smudge of red there, she noticed, that didn’t belong to his hair or someone else’s blood. It looked like a hickey. It was the weirdest thing about him, even weirder than his friends or his magic bag of cash. “Enough for the truck?”

Dumbly, she nodded.

“Good.” He said. “Can we have the keys?”

She got him the keys and the insurance papers and the certificate saying it was legal and proper to be driving it around.

“If someone asks where it went,” he told her, “if some men or women in black show up, say you sold it to your cousin.”

“Ain’t got a cousin,” she said. “Not one I talk to.”

“Say your ex took it,” he amended easily. He was good at lying, she thought. He was one of those types. Her last ex was one of those types. She thought about him saying _men or women in black_ , eyes flitting to the two muscleheads who were decidedly more banged up than him, and bit her lip. He caught the look and offered, “I’ll throw in a hundred.”

“Okay,” she agreed, still not sure if this was happening.

He gave her a hundred.

“Ex took it,” she echoed. “Damn shame. Total scumbag. Saw him in court. Got all this out of him.”

“There you go,” he said, and started backing off her porch. “Thanks.”

“Daisy,” she called after him. He paused on the last stair, looking back. “Name’s Daisy.”

“Thanks, Daisy,” he said. The tall, dark and handsome-under-the-blood one repeated it. The short one with the limp did not. 

They loaded up in a blink, the ginger hopping into the driver’s seat and futzing with her chair to get it closer to the wheel. Then they were gone, them and her truck of seven years, but the cash in her hands was not.

She counted it out before the first knock came on her door (it was Martha from three trailers down, nosy, prissy Martha). Ten thousand and one hundred, right on the nose. She felt a little sick having that much money spread out on her coffee table, but she also couldn’t stop crying, so she couldn’t immediately decide what to do.

Well. She’d buy a new truck, is what she’d do. And pay off a few debts. Yeah, that’d take a nice bite out of it. The rest-- oh, hell, she’d figure something out.  


* * *

  
They ditched the truck a full state over and, cleaner and bandaged, hitch-hiked to the nearest big city. Then they walked to the suburbs. By the end, sweat and held-back pain coated Andrew’s face, his limp twice as bad but his dignity refusing to let them stop or to ask Kevin to help.

The van they picked up there was a certified soccer mobile, which was perfect. They also didn’t have to pay a dime for it, which was even better.  


* * *

  
They survived.  


* * *

  
They worked the system and purchased a new identity.  


* * *

  
They picked an out-of-the-way medium sized village on the west coast, and started to _live._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **next:** the Foxes make a case for the Resistance to a trio of loose ends. the very reluctant and very tired loose ends prefer to remain just that: alive and untied.
> 
> thanks again for reading, and have an awesome week!


	3. AN ENDING

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ooh boy, that took a bit longer than expected. partly because university exams are kicking my butt, but also because this story ran itself straight off the rails.
> 
> whelp! hope it's still enjoyable. thank you so much all the support, and especially for reading this far. ♥ there's so many more kandreil fans than I thought there were?? you guys rock. I hope the last leg of the journey is a good (or at least interesting) one!

Every Thursday at seven, right on the dot, three of the Chinese Gourmet's best customers walked in.

They were the best because they ordered an incredible amount of food, always paid in cash and never made much of a fuss. By and by, the workers - mother, father, son, daughter, uncle and, very rarely, nephew - came to refer to them as Small, Medium and Large.

As it had been four months since the start of their ritualistic attendance, the whole family knew their names, but for the purpose of discussing their habits while they were around, the monikers were useful. They always gossiped in their mother tongue with one another; though they obviously didn't understand Mandarin, hearing their names peppered throughout their conversation would be plain rude.

Normally customers weren’t interesting enough to discuss, let alone remember, but the trio invited speculation. They weren’t obnoxiously loud, they weren’t disgustingly nice, they just _were_ , and the suddenness with which they appeared and the persistence in which they didn’t leave or miss their seven o’clock Americanized Chinese dinner struck the family as peculiar.

Rather, they struck the mother and daughter as peculiar. As the two worked the front, they had the most exposure.

The daughter, who liked being called Jodie, argued Small should really have been Medium, as Medium was distinctly smaller in the shoulders than Small.

 _Height,_ the mother, who didn’t mind the sound of Kristen but vastly preferred Jianting, admonished her. _We’re going by height. Anything else, and Small would Large while Large was Medium and Medium became Small._

 _Or,_ proposed the sixteen-year-old, _they could be No Veggie, Snob and Trouble._

Jianting contemplated this.

 _Too long,_ she finally decided. _Not confusing, but too long._

As they watched, Large once again chided Medium on eating around his veggies. In retaliation, Medium scraped off half his vegetable pile onto Large’s plate. Small stole a baby corn in the midst of the process, but otherwise - as always - seemed uninterested in taking sides.

 _You used to do that,_ Jodie’s mother groused. _Never eating your carrots. It was terrible. I had to make you sit there for an hour to get you to finish your plate._

 _Mom,_ Jodie groaned. _Please._

 _You were such a brat,_ she teased. _Your father would have none of it._

Said father called from the kitchen, _What was that?_

_Are you done with the orange chicken yet?_

_Three minutes!_

The flannel-wearing man who had ordered the orange chicken looked a little alarmed. 

The trio didn’t even glance over.

They were a trio of funny men.

They never ordered the same thing twice in a row, though Small always ordered a scoop of vanilla ice cream for dessert. Before they placed the order, Small and Large would stare too intently toward the kitchen while Medium browsed the menu. Then they’d briefly confer, one often scoffing at another’s choice, before Medium finalized whatever it was they wanted that night.

The number of dishes they ordered ranged from six to ten, they shared every single one (though Large was the pickiest of the lot and wouldn’t touch most of the popular chicken dishes), and, much to everyone else’s surprise, they largely finished what they started. Only Medium ever seemed to need a doggie bag.

Sometimes they called in for take-out-- Small or Medium, never Large-, but never on Thursdays. Thursdays, rain or shine, they sat in. 

Once, they’d appeared with clothing-laden shopping bags. Once, Medium and Large had been in track outfits and looked fresh from a five kilometer run. Every other time, Small and Medium ended their meal with a smoking break while Large cleaned up. 

They drove the least fitting vehicle in the world: an old blue van, the sort a family with a plethora of children and pets bought with easily removed seats and a big trunk. Jodie had only seen it _once_ , and only because it was close raining enough for a flood warning and the trio had decided not to walk.

Kid Valley, California was not an easy town to walk around. Public transportation was a joke, there were hardly any maintained sidewalks outside of the downtown, and the buildings themselves sprawled between one point and the next. The weather wasn’t bad compared to Xian, said her mother, but it was hot by the local standards, especially in the summer months.

The new-arrivals didn’t care. They walked _everywhere._ Usually in pairs, most often as a trio (they all worked for Joe’s Construction, as far as anyone could tell; Large sometimes appeared with his logo-stamped hat still on), though Jodie and her friends had seen Medium jogging alone along the back-roads.

Their Thursday dinners, by virtue of their constant bickering and not the large amount of food, lasted until the restaurant’s closing at ten-thirty. They were good at returning the washable dishes and utensils thirty minutes before and leaving fifteen minutes before, but it was still upwards of three hours of talking.

Inevitably, the Zhao family learned bits and pieces of their life. The son heard his share as he retrieved dishes and restocked the fridges. The father and uncle stayed in the kitchen, but - partially to see what the fuss was about - they timed their smoke breaks to match the customer’s. 

It had led to a conversation between the four, but the men refused to tell what they’d talked about, saying it was adult business.

(It had been, the father acting as interpreter for the uncle: _you smoke Marlboros? Me too. Good weather, huh. Yes, I think so._ )

(Wide gestures and friendly smiles had taken up most of the short exchange, and left the father even more confused about what had caught his wife and daughter’s eye. They were, as far as he could tell, normal. The taller one had let his cigarette burn out awkwardly between his fingers, but the uncle claimed that was because his brother had been watching him so intently and creeped him out.)

(Mr. Zhao was sure he’d been sneakier than that.)

In any case, Jodie wouldn’t let them go. Her younger brother started teasing her about having a crush, but he couldn’t decide which one she’d fallen for.

Her mother was sure two of the men were together, though she also couldn’t decide which was with which. Sometimes Medium showed up in clothes too large for him, but sometimes he showed up in clothes too small for him. It was annoying. Maybe they were some of those free-love hippies?

Jodie was _horrified._ Hippies didn’t work for construction sites, she said. And if they were gay, Large and Medium were _obviously_ together. They wouldn’t quit touching each other.

In the background, her brother gagged. _Why were they discussing a customer’s dating habits?_

 _We always discuss any girls’ dating habits,_ Jodie shot back.

Jianting sided with Medium and Small being involved, and Large as their concerned friend. He was, she pointed out, the most sensible one.

 _You only think that because he doesn’t like the greasy egg-rolls,_ Jodie argued.

 _That’s a perfect reason to think him sensible,_ Jianting replied. 

Small, Medium and Large, as they obviously didn’t speak a word of Mandarin, finished their meal, cleaned up, thanked Mrs. Zhao (she smiled), and, at ten-fifteen on the dot, left.

The moment the door closed, Jianting clapped her hands, said, _That’s all until next Thursday!_ and shooed her reluctant children back to work.  


* * *

  
The two-bedroom, one-and-a-half bath house Andrew, Kevin and Neil bought was registered under James Josten, to be shared with his friends, Greg Fenstad and Trevor Greene. 

It was bought in cash. It wasn’t the best property and it had been on the market for ages, and though they argued off half a thousand, the real estate agent was happy to get it off his hands. _It’s a buyer’s market_ , he’d laughed. James had smiled amiably and Trevor had laughed along. _You need a number for a mover? We have some nice ones in town._

 _That won’t be necessary,_ James replied. _But, thanks._

They moved in with their blue van and four bags, and had to immediately head back out for mattress shopping.

The first thing aside from the essentials that they’d bought was a television, forty-two inches and so clear the picture was a little unsettling. Kevin and Andrew didn’t notice the differences, but Neil found counting athlete’s pores somewhat distasteful.

The house didn’t feel like theirs, though they had papers that said it was. Kid Valley, with its lush surroundings and hiking trails and nearby National Park that would be easy to get lost in, seemed temporary.

But they made copies of the house key and found employment with construction contractors and Kevin forced them to sign up for membership to the local YMCA, and slowly, the world around them sank in. 

For the first time since before Evermore, for the first time since his mother had bled out on a California shoreline, Neil thought: _this doesn’t have to be temporary._  


* * *

  
“You lived here?”

“In the tall state of California, sure. I lived in Oakland. Then San Diego. And a few stops in between.” 

“We could have moved closer to one of those cities. They can’t have changed that much since you left.”

“Like I said.” He had not said Cass’s or Tilda’s names, not directly. Neither of the others knew, because: “There’s no need.”

Though Andrew looked extensively into visiting Germany (including his cousin’s address; he found Nicky Hemmick through twitter and gained a crash course on social media as he continued searching), he hadn’t once mentioned wanting to visit Oakland or San Diego. 

Oddly reluctant, Neil let it drop.

Andrew kept his face blank. It was as much a warning as a glare, really.

Pointedly, he drew back the curtains on their backyard’s sliding door and, arms folded, hip propped against the glass, turned his head from Neil to the fenced in expanse of green.

A treeline of thick pine ensured a lack of peeping toms (or, worse: peeping agents), but Neil still found himself shrinking back toward the darker kitchen.

It was an effective way to chase him off. Some days he dug in his heels and killed the impulse, but with Andrew’s touchy silence after bringing up Oakland and San Diego, he didn’t find the anxiety of staying to be worth it.  


* * *

  
It wasn’t about Andrew not wanting to discuss his time in the foster system or how he’d met his biological mother and brother or even his time spent in a juvenile detention center (of which Neil only knew about because of an off-hand mention from Kevin about Andrew’s record). As far as he knew, Andrew had put his days in foster care behind him, even if those days refused to let him forget. As far as it _mattered_ , his mother (who lived in South Carolina now, anyway) wasn’t to be contacted or trusted. She’d never once mailed Andrew after his and Aaron’s recruitment -- she’d kept a phone line open to Aaron, but she’d been a terrible mother even to the twin she’d kept. If he saw her again, he admitted, he might finish what he’d planned for her. What he had planned would potentially bring the authorities to their door, so he’d rather not.

Andrew’s hypothetical plan for Tilda’s comeuppance was one of the only plans they had.

Because aside from Germany, which was a long-term operation, they didn’t look into traveling _anywhere._

They had a backup plan that involved two safe houses, one in Montana and one in Colorado, but those were for emergencies. The van took them out of town if they needed a bigger city’s variety in shopping centers or a weekend at the National Park, but otherwise, it stayed parked in their driveway, and their accumulation of _stuff_ in the house grew.

Staying was far stranger than moving. Neil would need more time for the itch under his skin to cool off. 

For the majority of days, he thought it would be worth it. Some days, when he woke from his or another’s nightmare, when something in town changed enough to make him wonder _is this it, are they back,_ he wasn’t as sure, but he was willing to try.

(His mother had made him promise to survive. He held on to that promise -- he’d already broken every other one.)

Andrew had his on and off days, too. When Dr. Proust whispered in his ear and he could barely stand being in the same room as the others, when his appetite for anything excluding cigarettes disappeared, when he wouldn’t let Neil out of reach or sight and snarled at Kevin to back off, those were days that dug under his skin. It was loud, as loud as the memories of a foster brother and another foster father and a dozen named and lying faces besides, louder than the rush found on a rooftop, everything around him looking hostile and cruel.

But they were memories. They were part of him, but they did not own him. 

Eventually he found control, and always, he remembered the trust he could afford to those who trusted him with everything, and yes, he knew what he was willing to do to protect what was slowly becoming _theirs._

None of them were used to owning a piece of the world. Neil ran from ownership; Kevin and Andrew, they had signed away their very blood and bone to Evermore.

Some days, it felt like they’d traded a shackle for a mountain on their back.

Some days, no words passed between them. Some days, they trapped themselves on opposite ends of the house, ghosting through the halls and kitchen, and would not so much as look at one another.

Some days, it hurt to stand still.

Kevin adapted the best to solid work, a routine and a base of operations, but even he faltered. On the bad days, he found the sky overwhelming in its endlessness; even with Neil nearby, people were too loud and streets too chaotic; some days, he’d leave the grocery store empty-handed and shaking, unable to decide between the fifteen brands of granola. He needed the house at a very specific temperature on those days, and when they exercised in their closed garage, he was an unbearable partner.

On the bad days, he’d drink for hours in the living room while clutching Neil’s hand, mumbling not about Riko but rather about lives that amounted to nothing and lack of impact on a world in need of change.

But some days he walked around the house with his tattoo uncovered. Other days, he’d start house projects, building a desk or shelf or entire porch within a weekend. 

His first purchase for the home had been an incredibly expensive tool kit. Honestly, they should’ve expected what followed.

The house grew. It gained a porch, and an awning, and hand-made furniture, and crackers Andrew bought but forgot and left to go stale in the pantry, and bowls of ever-changing fruit, and specialized exercise equipment bought online in the garage. 

They gained a place in the world. They carved out their own place in the world.  
  
(A little black book gained dust in the back of an unopened drawer.)  


* * *

  
Twenty-three days after purchasing the house and fourteen days after picking up work in digging alongside roads and hauling heavy material from one orange traffic cone to another, Kevin asked Neil if he wanted to join the Exy team. The recruitment poster outside the gym had brought to mind how he’d met Neil in the (second, but really the) first place. He hadn’t thought beyond _Neil liked that enough to do it before_ and _maybe he’d like to do it again._

When the proposal made Neil stiffen, his shoulders a rigid line and face struggling for indifference, a wash of fear coating the living room, Kevin hadn’t understood what the problem was.

When Neil curtly said, “No way,” and then, “I’m going for a run,” and left without changing out of his jeans, Kevin _really_ hadn’t understood what the problem was.

“I didn’t say he _had_ to,” he’d complained to Andrew, more nettled by Neil’s response than he wanted to admit.

Andrew had rolled his eyes, drawled something about two idiots smashing their heads together, and flipped on the television. His face told Kevin _he_ knew exactly what the issue was, but would leave Kevin to figure it out himself. 

Andrew was useless.

It stoked his irritation higher: Andrew was useless to Kevin but was not, in this moment, as useless as Kevin.

In the interest of not thinking about it, he fetched himself a drink.

Neil returned in the middle of an Ancient Egypt documentary to find Kevin squinting suspiciously at the television and Andrew in exact same spot that he’d been left in. The two were on opposite sides of the couch; Neil pulled to a stop by the television’s side, waited until Kevin squinted in his direction, and asked, still stiff in voice and body, “What positions?”

Straightening from his boneless sprawl for all of two seconds, Kevin slumped back into the couch and mutter-demanded, “What positions for what?”

“For the Exy team,” Neil clarified, his impatience flying right over Kevin’s head, “what positions were they recruiting for?”

Kevin remembered the reason he’d started drinking. Irritation returning in a rush, he returned his eyes to the frizzy-haired man attempting to convince them the pyramids had been made by aliens and sniffed, “I thought you weren’t interested.”

Neil scowled, his socked foot tapping once on the carpet.

 _Good._

Taking another sip from his apple liqueur, Kevin scowled at the television.

Andrew commented, voice aloof, “Get on with it or get over it, Wesninski. I’m trying to learn my history.”

“I played Exy as a kid,” Neil said. Kevin blamed the alcohol with how quickly he looked back over to him; this tipsy, his attention was _shit_. 

Neil continued to provide new information about himself with, “After Seattle,” after his mother’s death, “I had a year of high school left, and decided to try for it again. Since I wasn’t too shabby, it wasn’t hard to join whatever local groups had openings wherever I was. It was…”

Kevin waited for him to finish the thought, blinking sluggishly at a Neil that struggled to find the right words. 

“... Fulfilling?” He finally proposed, plucking a word that never left his head, drunk or not.

Neil nodded, a sharp up-down jerk of his chin.

Kevin still didn’t see what the big deal was, but he wasn’t petty enough to ignore how much the admission apparently cost Neil. Or, really, how much this whole conversation seemed to toe the line of hurting him.

“I didn’t look close enough for the exact positions,” Kevin admitted, drunk enough to be a bit sheepish - though Neil claimed his ‘sheepish’ sounded ‘snobby’ -, “but I remember their e-mail.”

(Utilizing the library’s was convenient and, by this point, familiar. Thus, a computer was on their _to buy_ list, alongside another lamp for the bedroom and clothes hangers for the closet.)

Neil’s head jerked up-down again, twice this time. A muscle in his jaw popped. Alcohol had dulled Kevin’s… _everything_ into a pleasant mush, but he thought he caught a whiff of reluctant curiousity under lingering anxiety and sweat. 

He’d decided something on his run. He’d undoubtedly see it through. Generally speaking, Neil was good at sticking to his decisions, whether or not he’d given them voice.

For instance, he decided, “Tomorrow, we should get a laptop,” as he took the spot between Kevin and Andrew. It forced Kevin to shift over, the bottle between his knees tipping until he rescued it. Neil asked to his left, “Can I lean on you?” to which Andrew replied in the affirmative, even though he’d been giving off _don’t touch me_ vibes to Kevin all evening. Instantly tipping against Andrew’s side, Neil tucked his feet up and under Kevin’s leg, which Kevin couldn’t entirely mind even if the socks smelled fairly disgusting.

More alcohol, and he bet he wouldn’t smell them at all.

Feeling pleasantly hazy otherwise, he eyed the bottle in his hand.

“Is this the alien guy again?” Neil asked, voice quiet but clear. Not a whisper. Not a mutter. “Why do you keep watching him? Don’t say for education, this is barely better than the drivel you used to eat up about Evermore science.”

“Nothing else is on,” Kevin informed him, eyes once again drawn back to Neil. The television’s blue light softened him, the lines that showed up too frequently between his eyebrows smoothed out. “And the imagery is interesting.”

“It’s just a bunch of dusty tombs,” Neil replied, doubtful.

“He likes to complain about the outlandish theories,” Andrew said for him. 

Incorrectly. Spoke for him _incorrectly._ He did not just watch the alien documentary to complain. Setting the bottle safely out of accidental knocking range at the couch’s side, he corrected Andrew, “I _critique._ ”

“Just like how I’m getting an education.”

Andrew was _useless._

Critiquing was good practice, he thought to himself. Historical documentaries weren’t so bad. They made the world manageable, breaking up an otherwise endless deluge of stories and events into neat explanations. Beyond that, they held a sense of wonder that current news didn’t: here was a pyramid no one could be exactly right or wrong about its reason and construction. Here was a king who was neither right nor wrong in beginning a war, and here were his enemy’s reasons for finishing it. There was an empress who managed the impossible, never to be done again.

What it was practice _for_ , Kevin wasn’t yet sure, but it had to do with eloquence and diction and presentation. Probably. That, and the fact he knew so little about the world Neil and Andrew wanted him to live in, which just wouldn’t do for the _preparation_ side of whatever test was to come.

“We can’t buy a laptop,” Andrew said, “because he’ll start sending emails _critiquing_ the show-runners every Saturday night.”

Neil snorted, the last of his anxiety seeping out from his shoulders. Kevin tried to work himself up into proper irritation, but the haze in his brain, Andrew’s ease and Neil’s return refused to let him.

As the documentary wound down, Neil tipped farther and farther until his head was on Andrew’s leg and Andrew’s hand rested in his hair, one finger idly winding up a few strands. Kevin wondered how much Andrew had actually been in a _don’t touch me_ mood and how much - maybe - he himself had been in a _don’t touch me_ mood, or if this was another example of Neil’s constant _can I?_ and _may I?_ and _yes or no?_ paying off.

(He probably shouldn’t think of it as ‘paying off.’ That might be part of the trouble.)

(But everything - _everything_ \- was a cause-and-effect. As far as he could tell, history agreed: do this, get that. Have this, lose that. People made up history, so people couldn’t be that different.)

In any case, the new position let him pull at Neil’s legs until they were arranged more comfortably across his lap. He tugged off the offensive socks and, after a contemplative pause, pressed a thumb into the tough outside of Neil’s foot. When Neil made an inquisitive noise rather than anything upset, Kevin worked his way from top to heel, careful to check his strength at every small shift Neil made. The documentary’s disappointingly far-fetched ending was forgotten in the face of Neil’s pleased sighs and the relaxed slump he gained as he dozed off between them.

Overall, the trade improved the night drastically.

Andrew was the one to cut the television (it’d moved on to something about pawnshops; Kevin didn’t care, he was busy with massaging out the kinks in Neil’s generous calf muscle) and direct them to bed. Neil shuffled through the journey from couch to bathroom to bed, blurry-eyed and more relaxed than he’d been since they’d moved into Kid Valley.

He was out almost before he hit the pillow. Andrew moved to join him, but Kevin, a little clearer in the head and a little more thirsty than he had been when sitting down, thought about what he’d observed and, without reaching to snag Andrew’s shoulder (like he wanted to), asked, “Can I kiss you?”

Andrew paused. Glanced back at him, his outline clear as day even with the curtains drawn and lights off. 

“Color me surprised. Old, narrow-minded dogs do learn new tricks,” Andrew quipped, too soft for Neil to catch even if he hadn’t been out cold. Kevin frowned, pride unsure if it was bruised or not. He would have continued on to the bed if it wasn’t for Andrew stepping close with a, “Yes, you can,” and pulling Kevin down with one hand in his loose shirt collar for just that: a kiss.  


* * *

  
They bought a nice laptop the next day, as well as an even nicer blender. 

Within the week, Neil ended up joining the Exy team as a striker. The surprising part was: he stuck with it, and more than that, enjoyed it.

His joining inspired Kevin into joining as the other striker. Apparently the last strikers had been a married couple, of whom freed up the spots due to a recent move to Utah thanks to the wife’s promotion in a shrimp-producing company. There were more than a few open spots besides (the recreational team wasn’t big in the least), but when asked by Neil for his reasoning, he’d given him a funny look and replied, _There’s two striker spots. We’ll always work better together._

Neil couldn’t exactly argue with that.

Andrew took advantage of the team’s politeness and collective fear his all-black ensemble inspired to sit in on the bleachers during practice, his hands between his knees and his cool eyes following their every move.

Kevin had to hold back to keep from arousing suspicion, but he approached the careful restraint in a game that encouraged violence as a challenge in precision. A few weeks of practice and he flew by the other regular’s ability on the court, though Neil’s years of practice kept him from the team’s top spot.

That, too, was a challenge, and - if Kevin was honest - a heady rush besides.

They’d learned not to be open with their relationship, as two men kissing garnered unwanted attention, never mind three, but when Neil gave him a half-smirk, half-pure-ecstatic-grin after a particularly good shot and the rest of their team didn’t drag behind them _quite_ as much as usual and, running on a high from a game won, the locker room cleared out, maybe they lingered afterward.

Maybe they stole a few bruising kisses. Maybe Andrew had once crept his way into the locker room to rap his knuckles against the locked bathroom stall Kevin had Neil pinned to, chiding them for taking too long in a place that smelled so disgusting. Maybe he’d then openly and at length mused on what Kevin might have been doing to get _that_ noise from Neil. 

(Their team rarely put in the effort Kevin thought they should, or the effort required to give Neil a run for his money. They stayed for the sport, but mostly, they stayed for each other.)

When the team’s only goalie dropped out to focus on higher education and their practice scrimmages ground to an uncertain halt, he hauled himself up from his usual spot and went down to offer his services. Apparently he’d practiced for a few years in juvie.

Neil and Kevin, both thoroughly invested in the sport, lit up.

The team captain stuttered out a, “Sure, uh, yeah, man, if you’d like,” while wondering what exactly Andrew could’ve been in juvie for. Drugs? Arson? Murder? It all seemed possible.

(To make it better, it was the first thing Andrew had ever said to the other regulars. He privately delighted in how much the captain nearly pissed himself on his approach.)

The following night at the Chinese Gourmet, their favorite restaurant and emergency in-town meeting spot in case things got hairy, he warned Neil and Kevin off from getting too excited about his participation. He’d joined because they wouldn’t stop moping about missed practices, and that was it. The sport itself didn’t mean anything.

With how Kevin started talking on buying them _good_ gear and Neil mused on times for extra practice, you’d think he hadn’t said a thing.

(He refused the extra practices, but he didn’t refuse the heavy-duty, terribly expensive racquet Kevin picked out for him.)  


* * *

  
For all their ups and downs, they agreed: _this is worth fighting for._  


* * *

  
It was only a matter of time before someone tested their resolve.

They knew that, too.

But after leaving the Moriyama’s top trackers broken or dead in a quiet campground, after all they’d done to be _free_ , they were finished running.  


* * *

  
Two blocks down from their little house sat a 7-Eleven. It saved them the twenty-five minute car ride to the nearest Whole Foods for forgotten milk and eggs while doubling as Andrew and Neil’s late-night snack stop. 

Most days Andrew accompanied Neil, Kevin left to watch the house and whatever late-night documentary he’d become enraptured by, but sometimes Neil was already on a run and simply texted, _passing 7/11, you want anything?_

A surprisingly cool August night saw the latter case, with Andrew replying, _peanut butter swirl_.

Neil took the detour and easily located a pint of the stuff. After gauging how much he himself wanted any, he picked up two.

The man at the register was new. Tall and quick to smile, his nametag read _Hi! I’m MATT_ , which marked him as the replacement for _Hi! I’m JENNIFER_. He wasn’t someone Neil recalled seeing around the town before, though the car he had parked in the employee’s spot was second-hand and dirt-smudged enough to up the chances of him being a prospective student for the local community college. Thankfully, the day had been good and the night otherwise calm; Neil loitered by the back freezers and, hands clasped around the ice cream cartons’ frigidity, fought back his suspicion fast enough not to psych himself out of purchasing anything.

“Hi!” said _Hi! I’m MATT_ on Neil’s approach. He was quick to ring up the items and even quicker to bag them. Neil lowered his distrust by a few more notches. 

When he was asked, “Bit late to be out for a jog, isn’t it,” the clerk sounded genuinely interested, but he also seemed like the affable sort that was genuinely interested in any stranger, and that Neil shouldn’t take it personally.

So, with relief, he didn’t. “Long work day,” he answered, reaching for his change and the bag.

Matt handed them over, smile polite. “I feel ya. I’m on the clock until six.”

“When’d you start?”

“Ten. It’s on me; I should’ve thought it out when I signed up for third shift. The bumped up pay distracted me.”

Neil nodded, because that was what the people around here did. When he bid Matt good-bye, he got a wave. When he glanced in through the windows on his exit, Matt was already slouched on the counter, distracted by a smart phone barely hidden by the cash register.

Jennifer had been high school aged. The turnover wasn’t surprising, and Matt was definitely normal.

Neil told himself that again and again as he ran the rest of the way to the house. By the time Andrew had checked him over with inquisitive fingers along his arms and a long inhale in his hair, Kevin a close shadow, he believed it.

Good thing he’d grabbed two pints, too: they’d both zoned while he’d been gone, and even Kevin indulged in a spoonful to chase away the remnants of vulnerability.

Every time they let him go without a fuss, he understood their respect. Every time he returned, he understood how much they trusted him to come back. 

Rare though it was, every instance they came close to boxing him in -- Andrew growing tense and refusing to look his way, immediately digging for his cigarettes as if smoke would tempt him to stay; Kevin offering, over and over, to run with him, to run out of sight, that Neil didn’t even need to know he was there -- but _didn’t_ , he appreciated them with a depth he couldn’t fathom.

Never once did he think of not returning. 

The house, he could leave. Them, he would not.  


* * *

  
Though they’d been moved from the roadside to an old factory’s demolition site and spent the entirety of their days sweating their asses off, Kevin got it in his head that Exy made for an excellent conduit for keeping their reflexes sharp and proposed they begin their own late night training sessions.

If it hadn’t been Exy, Neil would’ve vetoed it. If Neil and Kevin both didn’t turn an expectant look on him, Andrew would’ve told them to fuck off. 

He told them to fuck off anyway and that he was sick of Neil hurrying them home to catch the collegiate level Saturday games and the professional league’s Sunday games, after either, discuss in length with Kevin about why the ref made this or that call, what player could have done what to improve, what mistakes were made, on and on and on. 

“You’re borderline addicts,” he grumbled at them as they hefted their gym bags over their shoulders (also recent purchases; they stilled smelled like a factory, the exterior texture rough against their skin). “It’s a slippery fucking slope that you two are all too happy to jump down.”

“Definitely,” Neil piped as they loaded into the van, Andrew taking the driver’s seat.

“We should stop for gatorade,” Kevin added from the back.

“I’m assuming you junkies have a plan for getting into the court.”

“The captain gave Kevin keys.”

“How?”

“It wasn’t that complicated. I explained the potential benefits. He said the other clubs needed the gym during open hours, but since he knows the gym’s owner and agreed with me that extra practice was a good idea. Since he’s busy most nights with his daughter, he put me in charge. How did you miss the announcement in the locker room? Anyone from the team is welcome to join.”

“But they won’t,” Neil hummed.

“Lazy,” Kevin scoffed. “They need it. I don’t understand why the captain couldn’t bring his daughter along.”

“Yes,” Andrew deadpanned, “he obviously has terrible priorities.”

Neil was right, to their collective and unstated relief: no one showed for Kevin’s ten o’clock practice. Andrew sat out for the first half as Neil and Kevin finagled drills out of the standard ones they learned from their teammates, peculiar ones Neil recalled from previous experiences, and the strength and hand-eye exercises they’d ran in Evermore. For the first time (including the marks it had left on each of them), Evermore became a thing to use, and didn’t immediately taint what it touched.

When they attempted to work out how to run a mock scrimmage with just two of them, Andrew wandered in from the bored laps he’d jogged around the court’s walls, geared up and wide racquet in hand. 

“Knock that shit look off your face,” he demanded of Neil before he turned and clacked his helmet against Kevin’s.

For the first time, Kevin’s stagger wasn’t practiced or intentional. He was too restrained of a person to knock back, but as Andrew took his spot at the goal and clacked his racquet on the floor, Neil couldn’t help noticing the change in Kevin’s stance. However focused he’d been before -- and he had been, superior strength and reflexes didn’t magically teach technique --, Andrew’s clear challenge to _give it your all_ brought out determination a Kevin that held back simply couldn’t have managed. 

Overhead, two cameras watched: one by the emergency exit and one by the normal entrance. 

They fed to a live feed within the building, watched by a rotation of two elderly women and one man, none of whom had ever dealt with anyone more troublesome than a teenager with red spray paint. As far as Neil could tell - and he’d checked as soon as they became regulars - none of the footage was recorded; the tapes were _supposed_ to be switched every week, but the guards frequently forgot. The oversight worked in their favor.

As Kevin slammed his racquet in the balls with more ferocity than a human should have been capable of and Andrew, moving at an unsettlingly fast speed, blocked them, Neil thought: they were lucky about the tapes. They were really, really lucky.

Then he put it out of his mind, because he had to keep up with two superhuman powerhouses wherein his only edge was the fact he’d poured his heart and soul into Exy since his mother’s death.

To be fair, it made for a decent advantage in terms of stealing the ball from Kevin’s racquet and sneaking high corner shots that required more coordination with the gear than Andrew possessed. 

But they hit the point in the night where Kevin snapped at Andrew for the third time about pure power not making up for his sloppy footwork and Andrew responded by smashing whole-body into Kevin when he stepped a toe into the goalie box, and Neil practically sprinted five feet back, as he had a snowball’s chance in hell of breaking up _that_ fight. 

It was violent - they ripped the goal’s netting from its hooks along one-side when Kevin managed to trip Andrew backwards - but it didn’t look as bad as the bouts in Evermore sounded. Neil knew Andrew played up being a ticking time-bomb of aggression for the intimidation factor just as he knew Kevin was the one often itching to stretch his legs to their fullest. He also knew, unless they’d become fantastic at hiding the inevitable collateral damage of a physical squabble, they hadn’t fought since their escape. Andrew didn’t enjoy unsolicited physical contact, and Kevin expected a mile when offered an inch.

The fights in Evermore had been born of pent-up frustration and a lack of anywhere else to put it. The first unfolding in front of him carried none of that.

As Andrew pinned Kevin’s shoulders with a slightly winded and quite mocking, “Tsk, tsk, your footwork has become _atrocious_ ,” and Kevin dislodged him with a knee Neil _swore_ Andrew should have known how to counteract, Neil tried to put his finger on what they were actually doing.

It took him a while. He was still training his brain to pick up on signals that seemed to come naturally to, if not Andrew, Kevin.

(Andrew, maybe, had a similar issue as Neil: an intimate history with being taught fear.)

(He didn’t ask _why_. He knew _yes or no_. When it came down to it, he didn’t need to know anything else.)

But then Andrew pinned Kevin again, helmet and shoulder pads cracking down against the smooth floor, and the annoyed protest Kevin made sounded far more breathless than it should have. They were both out of breath, but there was the out of breath that came from an impromptu wrestling match with one’s physical equal and the out of breath that came from some kind of _strange sentinel-brand flirting, were they **seriously** \--!_

From his place half a court away from their squabble, Neil cleared his throat.

The two looked his way, though Kevin took far longer to turn his head than Andrew.

“That was an illegal tackle,” he told them. “And you broke the net. Instant red card.”

In unspoken protest of Exy talk, Andrew sat back on Kevin’s pelvis. Kevin made a punched-in-the-gut, strangled sound, but, champ that he was, replied first to Neil. “Since when? I’ve never heard of that rule.”

“They’d make it special just for you two.” He couldn’t sound annoyed, and he didn’t bother faking it. He did make an obvious glance up to one camera - it wasn’t likely the guards were watching, _but they could be._

In any case, “Since we’re finished for the night, I’m hitting the showers.”

Kevin muttered about rule technicalities as Andrew rose to follow him, though he took the hand offered to pull him up (Andrew had lost his goalkeeper mitts sometime in the fight -- Neil scooped one up on his way to the locker room). 

They managed to fix the net before they left for good, and somehow they were on their way to the house before two in the morning. Both of those accomplishments felt like feats, as Kevin alternated between getting handsy with Neil (with no success, Neil too aware of the cameras; Andrew separated himself purposefully, setting a line in public that Kevin didn’t attempt to cross) and giving them a run-down on what they work on the next night ( _we’re doing this again that soon?_ \- _of course we’re doing this again that soon, consistence breeds discipline_ ), which did not motivate any party to move very fast.

“We could be good enough to go pro. We had a late start, but it’s been done before.” Kevin mused on the ride home, eyes bright but hands to himself. All bets would be off when they finally returned home, but they also had work in under five hours.

That wouldn’t stop the one who didn’t need to sleep as much as the average human, but at least they _all_ felt a level of muscle exhaustion.

In the front, hands clasped between the seats, Neil smoothed his thumb over Andrew’s knuckles. Without thought, Neil answered, “No.”

Andrew echoed him, voice flat. 

Kevin sat back, not entirely discouraged. 

There were more reasons than their age and lack of spotlight that barred them from making a career out of Exy. Gauging the tired but satisfied atmosphere in the car, Neil held back from pointing them out.

They ended up only catching three hours of sleep before work. Andrew and Kevin covered for Neil’s exhaustion, ignoring his protests that he was just fine, that this was nothing compared to how he’d felt before. 

It was the wrong thing to argue. He hadn’t thought it possible, but they managed to be even _more_ off-putting to the coworkers that tried to buddy up with him during lunch.

And yet, that night, they still went for extra Exy practice. Somehow, their job at re-tying the net had held up to the captain’s unwitting inspection.

 _Discipline,_ Kevin said.

 _Addicts,_ Andrew said.

Neil didn’t argue, stealing cat-naps in the car to keep up-right on the court.  


* * *

  
“The hunting breeds display remarkable aptitude for training.”

“We’re not getting a dog.”

The Large one scowled at his teriyaki salmon, and then at Medium.

“Why not?”

Medium stared at him as if it should’ve been obvious.

Jodie thought it was. She didn’t even live with them, and she could tell they would be awful at taking care of something living. Going by their cyclical and never-ending bickering, they barely seemed to know what to do with themselves on the day-to-day. 

Maybe, she thought, they could manage a fish. _Maybe._ If she was being generous, and if they invested in one of those self-cleaning tanks.

Her mother interrupted her trio-watching with a sing-song, “ _Daughter_ ,” making her jump. Then she waved a hand at the kitchens and said, still in Mandarin, “Onions. Chop-chop.”

Briefly, she entertained the thought of talking back. Mandy Hendrick didn’t have to work every day after school. Mandy did what she wanted. 

But Mandy’s mom wasn’t Jodie’s, and anyway, the faster she got the onions chopped, the sooner she could continue her eavesdropping (which was _the_ highlight of every Thursday, especially as her friends asked for updates on the trio at every Friday lunch).

As she left, she caught Large arguing, “We can rest easier knowing the house is watched.”

To which Small (Jodie liked to think of him as Trouble; her friends were convinced he was just a misunderstood bad boy and, worse, that she had a crush on him, which was _not true_ ) said, “As if we have anything there that needs watching.”

And Large replied, “Neil, when he’s running--”

Which was altogether _fascinating_ , except then her dad directed her to the back-back room to fetch the onion crates and she couldn’t catch another word. When she finished - in record time, she’d like to mention - they’d moved onto the subject of Exy, which terribly disappointing. Ever since they’d joined the community club - she hadn’t even known that was a thing adults could _do_ \- it was _all_ they talked about.

She snagged her brother when he came back around, ignoring his whining about her grabbing his arm in favor of hissing, “Did they decide to get a dog?”

Her brother looked at her like she was crazy. “Dog? What? Who?”

Her mother, who was mean at the best of times, said with a slight smile, “It’s rude to eavesdrop.”

She let go of her brother with a huff, pointedly slouching over the counter with her chin propped in her hand.  


* * *

  
The next week, Large approached the counter five steps ahead of his companions.

He looked unusually serious. As a tall, big fellow, his direct approach was off-putting. Mrs. Zhao eyed him, uneasy by association.

He asked, dead calm, “Do you allow dogs here?”

Mrs. Zhao blinked. Twice.

The answer was no. She gave him the answer in a concise, “No, sorry.”

He nodded, accepting it suspiciously well.

“ _Told you_ ,” muttered Medium. 

Large tried very hard not to act like he took it personally, but he sulked the rest of the night.

Not for the first time, she wondered what exactly was under that bandage of his. An unsightly scar, maybe? Was it part of a nervous habit? Oh, but he had his beer for his nervous habit. One day, maybe she’d find out.

She informed her daughter at the end of the shift about the dog-related decision, which sent Jodie into a flurry of texting activity. 

Honestly, the fixation was getting ridiculous, even by a sixteen-year-old’s standards.

 _Actually._ Thinking of how she’d met her husband, she’d take that back. Jodie didn’t act out even half the amount of ways she had at her age.  


* * *

  
“You look happy,” Matt said as he scanned five chocolate bars, one mixed bag of hard candies, one package of four paper towel rolls and a thing of deep-cleanse cleaning solution. 

He said it with a knowing smile, countenance at ease and his whole face somehow turned up at the edges. After two and a half months of nightly and grossly early detours to the 7-Eleven, Neil didn’t side-eye him for it. No matter the hour, Matt managed to be friendly. Depending on the hour, his energy level fluctuated, to the point that Neil had once walked in on him with his head stuck in the freezer to, as he said, _wake up better while checking the stock. It’s doubly productive, Neil!_

He meant well. If he was odd, he was no odder than anybody else.

He’d transferred to the local community college for its electrical engineering track. Though, as far as Neil could tell, his education was a second thought to his girlfriend, of whom moved to Kid Valley for a job offer to coach the local school team.

Neil didn’t break his contemplative stare at the rack of cigarettes behind the counter. Andrew had to be down half a pack. He usually liked to buy his own, but maybe he wouldn’t mind a surprise. Absently, he replied, “Do I?”

“The tired happy,” Matt affirmed, “that comes from being in a good spot.”

Unsure and somewhat discomforted by the word choice, he shrugged.

“Mind adding on a carton of Camel Blue?”

“Sure, sure.”

He supposed Matt would know better than him. For what he’d learned about Matt-- and he felt like he’d learned a ton, though perhaps that was because he typically avoided learning anything at all- the man hadn’t had an easy start of it. His elbow was lined with puncture marks, for an obvious one. He took abuse from customers too easily, for two.

 _I can’t argue with a customer,_ he’d told Neil after he’d asked what in the world Matt had been doing just standing there and agreeing when a flannel-shirted man had spent the better part of ten minutes blaming him for 7-Eleven’s false advertisement about _breakfast specials_. Matt had tried to explain the discounts didn’t begin until six, after his shift ended, but the man - who had arrived at four in the morning - hadn’t had any of it.

 _He didn’t end up buying anything,_ Neil had thrown back, an old part of him unnerved by the tall, middle-aged, red-haired man’s broad shoulders and broader hands, and a newer part of him unhappy with his typically quiet visit to 7-Eleven being interrupted by a brute. _He cost you more in time than he ever would’ve paid. He’s a shitty customer, and you should’ve told him so._

 __Matt had sputtered out a laugh. _Jeez, Neil. You’ve never worked retail, have you?_

 __He hadn’t. He didn’t see Matt’s point.

After that, Matt started asking him _how was your day_ and _you do eat more than ice cream, right_ and after Neil clarified it wasn’t just for him, _oh, how are your roommates?_

He never asked further than Neil told. He didn’t pry.

In return, Neil learned to ask, _how’s your girlfriend_ and _how’s her team_ and _wait, do you play Exy?_

Matt _had_ played Exy as a backliner, but school and work robbed him of the time to continue. He kept up enough with the professional teams in part due to his girlfriend, Dan, but also out of honest interest. Once or twice, they’d ended up chatting about a recent game long enough that Kevin texted Neil with, _Where are you?_

 _Coming_ , he’d replied and immediately had to bid Matt good-bye. The guy had taken it well, giving him a mock salute and _until next time!_

Andrew had texted him, _the impatient prince is going to buy a cow if you don’t get back soon with the milk_ , which eased the knot of tension over Kevin’s short message as he ran home.

Matt was, Neil realized on his way home that day, a friend.

It was a strange realization, as discomforting as the descriptor happy.

Speaking of. 

Taking the wide bag full of stuff, Neil thought over his own word choice, the risks and consequences to sharing this or that. Matt checked his phone in the meanwhile, his home screen wallpaper of a fiercely grinning woman in a bright orange Exy outfit flashing in Neil’s direction.

Finally, he settled on sharing. “We got a dog.” 

“You and your roommates?” Matt blinked up, phone screen fading to black. “Whose dog is it?”

“Trevor’s.” That, at least, he didn’t hesitate over. Trevor (or, Kevin) messed up most out of them all, to the point that Neil had told him just not to use names. 

_What,_ Kevin’d groused, _like how Andrew never uses our names?_

 _That a problem, Trev?_ Andrew had drawled back.

 _Sure,_ Neil was quick to interject. _Like Greg._

But Kevin didn’t need nicknames to communicate how he felt, and so he phased out of using names altogether. Since there were only two of them and Kevin _usually_ referred to them both, it wasn’t so bad.

“Regretting the choice?” Matt joked. 

Neil gestured to the cleaning supplies in silent exasperation. Matt, quick and light, laughed. 

He offered, “I know a good dog trainer, if he needs help. She lives around here, actually; she’s amazing with animals of any sort.”

 _No._ Restraining his knee-jerk distrust for anyone coming to their house, Neil shrugged and shook his head. “It’s not for lack of trying. She’s a rescue dog. Her last owners thought her too rowdy once she started getting big, so they’d leave her in a kennel to cool off.”

And sometimes it took a while, so they wouldn’t let her out for days.

Matt understood immediately, it seemed. “Ooh. Yikes. Yeah. That could be tough. What’s her name?”

“Shelly.”

“Does she know any tricks?”

“How to open the fridge when no one’s around and eat an entire chicken, if you’d consider that a trick.”

“For something without opposable thumbs, I’d say that’s pretty impressive.” Matt grinned while Neil sighed, and waved him off. “Wouldn’t want to keep your new pup waiting. Take care, alright?”

“I’ll be fine,” Neil had replied, pushing off from the counter. “You too, Matt.” And, because it seemed to be the right thing after all the stories he’d heard about her (and because the idea that Matt talked about him was unnerving, but if he said something first, it put the exchange a little more under his control): “Say hi to Dan for me.”

Waving him off with an extra lopsided-smile, he said, “Will do!” 

The dog wasn’t an intentional parallel. Kevin had picked her out because she was an otherwise healthy, four-year-old mutt with some sort of pointer blood in her lineage, not her tragic backstory. In truth, after the volunteers had informed them of her high energy and anxious tendencies, they’d almost backed out. They had enough issues between the three of them that they didn’t need to add in a four-legged bundle of nerves. Besides, the whole point to getting a dog was to train it into an extra alarm system and, if their good luck held on staying in Kid Valley, something that could deal with a problem until the sentinels came down from a zoning.

But Andrew, of all people, told Kevin that he’d taken too long searching for a fit as it was, and if he didn’t want this one, Andrew wouldn’t have them driving two counties over for the next pound, so it was Shelly the neurotic mutt or no dog at all.

The volunteer in charge of their paperwork had looked miffed at Andrew talking about adoption so callously. Meanwhile, off to his side, Neil quietly wondered on the sudden sentimentality. 

Shelly the neurotic mutt ended up going home with them. They had to sign up with a vet, of whom wasn’t a doctor but still made Neil’s crawl. Their address, attached to their (fake or not) names, was in someone’s system. Their address and fake names were attached to a number of people’s systems: the Exy club, the construction administration, the property taxes they had to pay, their _network package_ for the television.

Shelly moving in hadn’t been a good week for Neil.

To be fair, it also hadn’t been a good week for Kevin, as he quickly remembered he had no practical experience with animals. 

The closest he came was when he’d turned twelve and received an Evermore sanctioned lesson on how to skin and boil a rabbit. Though the rabbit had been alive and placed exclusively under his care at the start of the month-long lesson, that had been more an exercise in mortality than animal care.

He’d studied up on dogs after watching the Animal Planet documentary that started his obsession with training one, but books didn’t compare to the real thing. Especially when the real thing was prone to running circles in the living room for no real reason, enjoyed chewing _everything_ , and alternated between working itself up into a panting fit or ear-scratching howl at any bird, squirrel, car or person that passed their house. 

Andrew ended up being the one to take care of her more often than not, shooing Kevin off from his training attempts when the dog had clearly lost interest and attempting to get her to _sit!_ did nothing but frustrate them both. She sat for Andrew, though he never told her to; she more often than not calmed down for Andrew, in part because he would wait her energetic fits out and in part because she learned he’d only scratch her ears and belly when she wasn’t jumping on him.

Neil wasn’t sure he should’ve been surprised. The more he thought about it, the more it made sense. Of course Andrew would be good with anxious creatures - he was, after all, good with Kevin and Neil. 

Comparing himself to a mutt brought back insults made in white corridors by black uniformed personnel, a smiling face with **one** inked onto the left cheek carving _DOG_ into his chest, the idle talk of turning it into a permanent addition to his face, the words, _if you’d just learn your place, you wouldn’t have to be here,_ and _ending this is your choice, Nathaniel_ , and _sit. Shake. Speak. **Good boy.**_

That sadist was gone.

He hadn’t seen it himself, but Andrew didn’t lie, and Kevin’s remorse wouldn’t let him.

(As Andrew said: it was a matter of trust.)

For a while, he’d wondered if he was jealous of Andrew letting Shelly drape all over his lap, but then he’d taken steps to get himself there before her. Andrew (who of course caught on immediately to what he was doing) huffed a quiet, “ _Really?_ Is this going to become another bad habit? Consider yourself at ninety-three percent,” flicked his ear and called him an idiot in French, and the unpleasant feeling smoothed into what Matt would probably call happiness.

They bought Shelly a bright green collar with a matching bright green leash. She had a dark green dog bed next to the television, but she preferred sleeping at the foot of theirs, for all that she definitely didn’t fit. 

For all he struggled to train her, she went everywhere outside with Kevin. 

It was the first time Kevin went _anywhere_ alone, and their runs didn’t last long, but --- it happened.

They’d both return out of breath, the dog wriggling in tired excitement as she dodged Kevin’s attempts to clean her muddy paws and beelined for Andrew and Neil, the sentinel stumbling after her with the ratty dog-designated towel and something like a careless, open expression tugging up the corners of his mouth.  


* * *

  
The dog hated being alone if she had a choice not to be, which was only a problem when the humans wanted to do human things that a dog had absolutely no place in.

Such as, eating chocolate cake.

And, good morning kisses.

Or, utilizing the equipment in the garage.

Also, house projects involving nails and sawdust. 

And, hands sneaking under shirts and hot breath sensitive skin, knees pressed there and chests flush, fingers in blond hair and pale hands on tan skin and lips trailing down a bared throat and _holy fuck Andrew why are your toes wet_ , _my dry toes are over here, then who-- Shelly! Out!_

Needless to say, they learned to close the door.

Eventually, Shelly learned not to paw and cry at a closed door with her humans on the other side. Which was good, as her pathetic whining had killed the mood almost more than her cold nose jabbing into shirtless sides or oblivious, happy staring at the tangle three bodies made on a king sized bed.

After they opened the door and she tumbled in as a squirming pile of limbs and stubby tail, Kevin would grumpily protest, “Don’t let her on the bed. It’s a bad habit.”

The argument old and result unchanged, Shelly clambered onto the bed.

As Andrew continued to need distance between him and the others to fall asleep for more than ten minutes (and the others continued to not fancy being hit on accidentally waking him up), she wormed her way into that gap.

At the resulting shift for accommodation, Kevin nearly fell off. 

“At least keep her at the foot!”

“There’s plenty of room. See? She’s settled, and you’re fine.”

Neil thought Andrew sounded amused. Kevin, forced to cling onto Neil, swore at both dog and man under his breath. Yes, Neil thought, he was definitely amused.

Neil was less amused about Kevin smothering him and the dog’s panting in his ear as her placement inevitably overheated her, and the situation _had_ to change before any of them would catch a wink of sleep, but the image of two deadly scientific experiments bending their rules for a mutt was too much. 

He couldn’t help it: he laughed.  
  
  
(A little black book was taken out of its drawer, dusted off, and carried to the backyard. It was too heavy to be burned, too full to be shredded.)  
  
(Kevin buried it below the largest pine, deep enough for roots to pull it down and shallow enough for bugs to make a home in its rumpled, over-used pages.)  
  
(By and by, it turned to dust.)  
  
(By and by, unbeknownst to its caretaker or his friends, it was forgotten.)  
  


* * *

  
Though they couldn’t expect snow, with the winter months came rainstorm after sludgy, cold rain storm. Work slowed to an uncertain crawl, the boss calling Kevin to tell them all to stay home for a day, then two, then three. Dependent as construction was on the weather, a particularly long deluge ended with them returning to a site flooded and in need of complete re-excavation.

Fortunately, they had enough left over from Neil’s stashes for finances not to be a major concern. Still, it meant their spare time narrowed into Exy practice and Exy games, interrupted solely by dog training and trips to restaurants. 

Really, they didn’t have much to complain about.

After one informal Exy game against the neighboring town’s club, the trio returned home in reasonably high spirits. Shelly, who they didn’t have to train to bark at strangers because she barked at everything, greeted them with a howl followed by happy yipping. Kevin hurried to usher her into the backyard despite the sky’s dreary drizzle. She wasn’t exactly the most house broken pet, and any day without an accident was a boon.

Neil, riding the high from a decent game, went for the fridge with a small bounce in his step. “We’ve got Chinese leftovers, fried salmon, uuh… I think that’s a chicken caesar salad.” 

Humming noncommittally, Andrew moved their dripping raincoats to hang in the bathroom. “If it is, it’s two weeks old. Throw it out.”

Pulling the container to give the wilting lettuce within a sniff and poke, he reluctantly admitted Andrew had a point.

In the backyard, Shelly started up her _something is moving near me and I am startled_ howl. Much as he was alright with her presence and accepted that their neighbors knew them as the place with the loud dog more than any of them as individuals, Neil frequently wished she’d shut up. How the sentinels put up with it day in and day out with their advanced hearing, he really didn’t know.

He went to toss out the salad and scrounge up something else for dinner.

Andrew reappeared in the kitchen, his head tilted with a furrowed brow. It was a look that said he was listening to something. Neil frowned at it, and at him.

Someone knocked at their door.

Neil shut the fridge. Quietly. 

Andrew crept toward the door. Quietly.  


* * *

  
The person knocked again, impatient. Through the peephole, they weren’t anyone familiar.  


* * *

  
The _persons._ Two of them. The second, blond and tall and looking like she’d walked away from a modeling contract for a Hollywood deal, was the impatient one.

When Andrew cracked open the door, she popped the pink bubble she’d made out of her bubblegum and gave him an unimpressed look of, _finally._

The first, shorter but not short, quick to smile and more suited for a jersey and basketball shorts than her blue blouse and grey khakis, stuck out her hand. “Hello! Would you be interested in purchasing any CutCo knives?”

The answer was easy. 

“No.”

He made to shut the door. 

She wedged in a polished shoe before it could, smile a bit sharper. “I’m sorry to interrupt you on this dreary day, but really, if you hear us out, I think you might be interested.”

Her companion pulled a folder out of her silver-studded purse. It was indeed a pamphlet about CutCo knives, glossy and thick. The only oddity - and it wasn’t even really an oddity, it was so small - was the stylized orange fox where the bland CutCo logo should have been.

Blowing another pink bubble, the woman’s eyebrow raised in clear challenge.

Andrew held her gaze.

At her side, her companion’s smile grew strained. The door creaked at the pressure he put into closing it, the foot caught in between slowly giving ground toward being crushed.

He said, “I really don’t think I will be.”

She said, voice edged, “You won’t know until you hear us out.”

“Are you asking me,” the door froze on the cusp of real pain, her nice shoe bent up, “or telling me?”

“Asking,” she said. “Only asking.”

The rain dampened everything behind them: sound, smell, any taste to be caught. There was no telling who had come with them. Their neighbors consisted of one friendless hermit, two party-every-night-ers, and an old, nosy but borderline blind couple. Their curtains were typically drawn, but he couldn’t look away from the second woman’s eyes to check.

He said, “Come on in.”

The woman’s bubble popped. He backed up, ignored the other woman’s grimace over her foot, and open the door wide enough for them to brush through.

They walked in and headed for the kitchen, watching him from the corner of their eyes.

He closed the door.  


* * *

  
The one in the blouse didn’t scream or pull a gun when he slammed her blond friend into the wall, which was interesting.

She did say, “It doesn’t have to be like this,” which was less interesting.

Outside, the dog howled. 

Inside, Neil had disappeared. Possibly to the backyard. Probably to the guest bedroom. Andrew breathed in rain ( _the women_ ), car leather ( _the women_ ), paper ( _the women_ ), worn rubber ( _Neil_ ) and sun ( _Neil_ ). He breathed in tapered worry and sharp pain ( _the women_ ) and sharp, sudden fear ( _the women and Neil_ ). 

“One more step,” he said, one hand tight around the wrist he had pinned to her back and one pressing her head to the wall, “and we’ll see how far her arm bends before it snaps.”

The woman cursed colorfully under her breath.

The other did not move, her palms turned up as if to placate him.

The house was saturated in _Neil_ , and _Kevin_ , and _Shelly_ , and even _Andrew_. It hadn’t held fear since the last nightmare by one of the above two weeks previous, and it hadn’t ever been intruded upon by someone else.

Another breath in, and Andrew tasted the color red as fury simmered just under the surface. It was a little interesting after he realized it was his.

His ears picked up on slow steps from the direction of the living room, a door shut so quietly he only knew it had been from the abrupt drop in outside noise coming in. The owner avoided every creaky floorboard, the scent of fresh rain, grass and dog sliding in ahead of him.

“We just want to talk,” the one Andrew didn’t have his hands on said. “Before the Ravens get here. We’ve been holding them back for you, but we can’t guarantee your safety much longer.” 

( _Ravens?_ )

(He supposed Evermore’s logo did include a raven.)

(And they were, what, the foxes?)

(How ridiculous.)

The one Andrew did have his hands on growled, “You treat all your guests like this?”

“I see a pair of lying interlopers, not guests.” He pulled her hand up a little higher, a little more out of its comfort zone. She bit off a gasp. “I already gave you an answer. If you’re asking, not telling, you should’ve accepted it.”

“Do you understand how much they want you and your friends? Eight months ago, you left their prized hunters dead in a campsite. Seven months before that, you made off with over half a billion in investments and left their main headquarters in chaos. All this, this playing house-- as things stand, that’s all it is. A fantasy. They’ll never let you live in peace.”

“And yet,” eyes on her, ears tracking Kevin, “here we’ve been. For eight months, as you said.”

She bared her teeth, but didn’t raise her voice. She also kept her spot. She was, he admitted, good. “Because of us.”

He severely doubted that.

But even if it was true, he didn’t care. He contemplated his actions. He calmly tightened his hand in blond strands, drew her head back, and cracked it against the wall.

Her eyes fluttered and closed, her body abruptly heavier. The other woman bit out an, “ _Allison--_ ,” finally stepping forward.

“Here,” he said, letting Allison slump to the floor and the other one to rush forward and collect her, “my thanks. Now take your friend, and go.”

It was generous, he thought. If he followed what he _wanted_ , neither of them would have stood again.

Watching them. They were _watching them._ For how long? From where? And then they had the gall to pretend they were better than the Moriyamas, that they had any intention of giving them an option, that because they were in opposition that they would happily fall in line.

She did partially as told. She gathered her unconscious friend up, wrapping an arm over her shoulders and standing with her weight supported, but she did not leave.

Fire in her eyes and her anger mixing with his through the dull stamp of rain, “You think this is a game? That we’re joking?”

“No,” he told her, honestly. “But I don’t care about what you have to sell. And neither do those I live with.”

If she visited them--

If she knew the route Neil ran, if she followed Kevin on one of his walks-

He kept his face blank and tampered the fledgling feelings down, his ears catching Kevin’s halt just around the kitchen corner, poised to leap in at a moment’s notice. The rest of him focused on Neil’s presence, etched as it was into every inch of their home.

He’d warn her off from them, but it would give her too many ideas. That was a cardinal rule: _never show what was yours. They’ll take it away, they’ll twist it, they’ll tarnish it. Keep silent._

In any case, she picked up the conversation. “The only way any of you are going to be free is if they’re gone.”

“Yes,” he granted her.

She didn’t understand how he could stand by. He saw it in her face, in the twitch of her brow and start-stop of her words. 

“I can’t believe Wymack died for you cowards,” she finally spat, lugging her slowly awakening friend to the door.

Around the kitchen corner, he heard Kevin’s sharp intake of breath.

That she didn’t have a weapon on her was the only reason Andrew let her leave. The _only._  


* * *

  
In the twenty minutes to follow the women’s departure, they silently packed three duffel bags’ worth of supplies and one extra for food. Twenty minutes after careful watch for activity and a quick, militant patrol by the sentinels, and they loaded their bags and the dog into the van.

They took the long, winding way to the humane society. 

Under a willow, they cut the minivan’s engine and for the first time, though they wouldn’t call it that, hesitated.

“We can’t take her along,” Neil said into the silence, back ramrod straight and eyes dead ahead to the humane society’s dark doors. “Even if a dog wouldn’t cut down our options, she’s too loud.”

In the back, Kevin rubbed at her floppy ears. Shelly, for once, was not too loud or too hyper. Something about their collective tension had her hunched, head drooped and tail tucked, and very reluctant to leave Kevin’s side.

Andrew tapped a finger on the wheel, once.

“She’s a shit pet,” he idly commented. “Barely learned sit. Never learned stay. Absolute waste of time and space.”

Feeling far away, Neil replied, “Sounds familiar.”

“I hate her.”

“Think they’ll put her down?”

“Why are we dragging this out?” Kevin asked, fully aware of and not a little irritated (rather: frightened) at their hesitance. Perhaps he’d questioned why they’d left, and maybe he brought up reasons time and again in his mind why it would be better to turn themselves in rather than wait for the inevitable, but Andrew and Neil never had. 

Except now.

Since he’d said it, they couldn’t deny what they were doing.

Wavering.

They were wavering.

_Hadn’t they agreed that they would fight for this?_

It was a bit different with the hounds at their doors, whether they came in blue blouses or black uniforms. It shouldn’t have been, but it was.

“How had we missed noticing them so long?” Someone asked.

Another one of them answered, “We were too comfortable. Too complacent.”

“We were paying a _mortgage._ ”

“Ask any neighbor, and they’d be able to say when we moved in.”

“We should’ve noticed.”

Shelly, as Kevin’s hand stilled around her green collar, whined.

One of them said, “We can’t do this again.”

It came in three varieties of tone. 

For one: _I’m done with running. It’s time to stay._

For another: _It felt like a beginning. Like something to look forward to._

And, finally: _I won’t let them take this from me. Not again._  


* * *

  
Eventually, the rain stopped.  


* * *

  
Seven o’clock on Thursday night ticked by, but the Chinese Gourmet’s entry bell didn’t ring.

Realizing the time ten minutes past seven, Jodie tapped her foot by the front counter. Of course the night she’d made sure there was nothing her mother could do to send her away from the register, the trio didn’t show up on time.

The rain had made the nights before slow, which worried her father and, even more, her uncle. He had a wife in Xian to send remittances to. In consequence, every small blip in business stressed him out and made him, in her little brother’s snide words, unbearable to be around. She’d hated his up-down emotional roller coaster too, especially as he slept on a couch in the living room where the television was and _hated_ noise when it was a down day.

But then she’d overheard her father trying to get him to accept a little extra and how he’d argued that he’s already done more than enough, and to save it for her college fund, which gave her what her English teacher would call _perspective._

Bored out of her skull at the register without any interesting customers to eavesdrop on, she tried for some _perspective_ on the missing trio.

It wasn’t raining, so it couldn’t be that. It hadn’t flooded, so they couldn’t be dealing with any damages. Work, maybe? But they’d never missed a Thursday dinner…

Her little brother, because he was also a little shit, caught her staring at the door, noticed the lack of a Small, Medium or Large, and made annoying kissy faces at her. “Aaw. Jodie’s _pining._ ”

“Little brothers are supposed to respect their sisters,” she snapped back, flicking him in the forehead. “Buzz off, ugly! Your face is going to stick like that.”

Her mother, because she somehow knew everything, called: “No fighting in the front!”

With one last pretend-blown kiss, he scampered off to the back. Rolling her eyes, she slouched back on the counter and resumed her watch for interesting persons.

Eight o’clock came.

Eight thirty.

Nine.

“Do you think it’s because we told them they couldn’t bring in their dog?”

Her mother had joined her at the front. She tried not to look it, but Jodie was pretty sure she was just as confused at _all_ of the trio missing.

“We could call and tell them that, uh…” Jodie scrounged her brain for an adequate way to argue _bring in their dog_ without actually saying that because her mom would not be happy about even the idea, “they can leave it right outside the door?”

“If Americans weren’t so picky on what they thought made a restaurant clean,” her mom responded, “I’d have told them they could bring the dog in. People eat near dogs all the time. I’m sure theirs wouldn’t be diseased.”

Oh. Well.

“It could definitely sit outside,” her mom added. “No harm there.”

For the next thirty minutes of no-trio-show, she didn’teven tell Jodie to get back to work. 

It was weird. 

They’d never called in their take-out, so they didn’t have their number.

It was nine-forty. Nine-forty-seven.

Nine-fifty.

“Start closing up,” her mother finally told her. “We haven’t had a customer in almost an hour..”

Unable to stop her worry, Jodie went for the scrubs and wash bucket even as she asked, “What if something’s wrong with them? Like they’re sick, or… or...”

She didn’t really have an _or._ What, their house collapsed on them? Their new dog came with rabies and infected them? They were illegal smugglers and the police had them in cuffs?

They were three construction workers that liked Chinese food on Thursday nights and had a weird obsession with Exy. It wasn’t as if they could be a pack of fugitives. That would have been ridiculous.

It didn’t feel right turning off the neon open sign without seeing hide or hair of them, but it wasn’t like she could summon them. Sometimes regulars didn’t show up-- that wasn’t a new concept. It was just: those three never seemed like they’d get sick, or distracted, or anything regular regulars became. If she were honest with the terming, the shocking part was that they had seemed different.

Her mother caught her peering out the back window at one minute to ten. “Don’t worry, I’m sure they’re fine. The look in their eyes matched your father’s. They’re survivors.”

Jodie wasn’t sold on comparisons with her goofy, head-in-the-clouds, sun-up to sun-down workaholic father.

Or, she was, but she wasn’t going to tell her mom that.

She stole one more glance toward the empty parking lot before trudging back to her bucket, thoughts latching onto something that would make her feel better and thusly muttering, “Panda Express opened a town over. What if they’re cheating on us?”  


* * *

  
Wednesday night, Allison and her friend made their recruitment pitch.

Before the sun rose on Thursday morning, they drove and drove and drove a hundred-plus miles, parked their minivan on the outskirts of a gas station lot, folded down the back seats, set up a mix of each other and their clothing bags as pillows, and didn’t sleep a wink.

A whine forced all of them up sometime after daybreak. Kevin took the dog out for a bathroom break and quick dash around the station, and then he picked her up and tucked them both back into the car.

“We’re staying.”

Kevin nodded.

Body shoved into a back corner, Neil’s hands tightened around his knees. Andrew, the one who had spoken, watched him from the corner of his eye.

If Neil wanted to leave---

It didn’t matter.

He didn’t want to leave.

He, too, nodded.

Hand dug into a jacket pocket, Andrew thumbed through his change for a ten. Shoulders tense and eyes hard, he shoved it at Neil. 

“Buy me a carton. Then we’ll go.”

If Neil wanted to leave, it would’ve been the perfect opportunity.

It didn’t matter. He didn’t want to.

Andrew drove the way back.  


* * *

  
After a tense four days wherein they left the house only to watch the dog in the backyard, they returned to work on Monday and played Exy at night.

On Tuesday, they went to work and played Exy at night.

On Wednesday, they went to work and played Exy at night.

On Thursday, they went to work, took the dog to a local park for a longer run, left her in the minivan with windows cracked and a water bowl, and went to their favorite Chinese restaurant. It had been the first routine stop to be established. It felt good to be back in the routine.

The family that worked the restaurant eyed them, but the mother looked self-satisfied and the daughter looked relieved, so they put it out of their mind.

The resistance did nothing.

On Friday, they did as they had on Monday to Wednesday.

The resistance did nothing.

On Saturday, Neil paced a hole in their bedroom, the curtains drawn tight and Shelly locked out. 

_They’re watching._

He didn’t have to say it. His hand shook as it ran through his hair, his skin looking five sizes too small for the jittery nerves and exhausted adrenaline jumping underneath. 

“We should leave.”

That, from Kevin.

Andrew ran his tongue over his teeth. He’d invested in black armbands when he discovered they wouldn’t be too questioned and similarly discovered covering his scars with more than baggy sleeves actually brought less attention; he’d also invested in sheaths for knives, as they fit neatly under the bands. A few thoughts had gone toward buying a pair for Neil or Kevin, but they hadn’t gained traction.

“We should leave,” Kevin reiterated, his arms crossed tight over his chest and jaw squared, “or we should flush them out.”

They hadn’t discussed Wymack. They hadn’t discussed how much they believed a desperate resistance fighter. Kevin hadn’t consulted the bottle as much as he once had, but Andrew was sure the restraint was born of tension over possible attacks more than any real sign of mental health.

Another hand ran through his hair, Neil shook his head. It was erratic; it was as jumpy as his heartbeat. “We can’t do either.”

“Why not?”

“We have to stay,” first and most vehemently, “and we can’t confront them. Who knows how many they have waiting to take us out if we prove useless?”

“We haven’t exactly been cooperating as is.”

“This is the test period,” Andrew murmured. “They want to feel better about their recruitment tactics, so they’ll give us a little space. A little time. Just enough to think through our options and come to our senses.”

“And when we don’t, they’ll make sure the Moriyamas can’t have us, either.” Neil finished for him, bitter and twisted.

Four steps that way, four steps the other. Andrew watched him, fingers itching for a cigarette.

Kevin didn’t say it, but he didn’t have to. _We can’t live like this._

It’d already been a week, but suddenly their comforting routine felt like a cage. Work, Exy, the dogs, television, even the Thursday dinner: they were jumping hoops to kill time and nothing more. The sky was a limit, the town’s outskirts their walls, an outdoor version of their underground hell.

Neil paced passed him one more time, the whites of his eyes swallowing his pupils, his hands shaking too badly to make it through his hair a third time. Reaching out, Andrew snagged his elbow and forced him to sit. A breath shuddered out of him, panic rising fast from a week spent indoors and under watch.

“We need to, we need to,” he said, quieter and quieter, “a plan, a path, a map, a--”

He shook right out of his skin. 

Andrew pressed a hand to his nape and forced his head between his knees; he broke down, terror and fear rolling off him in waves. 

Instinct begged Andrew to find the cause of his distress and remove it with extreme prejudice. This time, he agreed completely with it..

Kevin shifted his weight and stood watch at the closed door, tense and undoubtedly feeling something similar. His fingers found his left cheek and the number inked there, the skin slightly lighter than the rest of him; he didn’t burn near as badly as Andrew and Neil did, but there was a reminder of what he cover he wore every day.

Probably, he still felt it. The cover or the number-- Andrew wasn’t sure which.

As Neil fell apart and gathered the pieces left over, Andrew watched him and measured his breathing in time with Kevin’s. Calm. Sedate. 

A plan. A path.

The knives under his arm bands felt warm. Kevin and he had mock fought a few times since he’d deigned to partially participate in their ridiculous late night practices; it had, he couldn’t deny, felt nice to work up a sweat.

But a real fight? He felt too little to work up the heat for that.

The knives against his skin, however. They had no issue calling for blood.

“We aren’t running.” Neil’s breath slowed, second by agonizing second, his hands clenched around his head. “But it’s about time we made that trip to Germany.”

Kevin, ever practical: “When?”

Another slower breath, another step closer to regaining his control, Neil came back to them. He didn’t protest Andrew’s hand, which didn’t _really_ mean anything, but in this case, Andrew left it there, thumb instinctively rubbing a gentle circle into the side of his neck. 

_I’m here. There’s nothing to fear. You’re safe._

Neil Wesninski thought himself safe around Andrew Minyard. Even before they left Evermore, Neil had relaxed around him.

Now here, with the space to run, he still thought himself safest around Andrew Minyard and Kevin Day.

It was absurd enough to make him want to laugh.

(It was a prime example of why he _hated_ what Neil Wesninski had done to him.)

(Bringing him down from panic attacks shouldn’t have been instinctive; they shouldn’t have these issues; he shouldn’t have been a sentinel; there was a lot that shouldn’t have been.)

Andrew kept his words measured and quiet.

“First, we need to brush up on German.” Their stay would inevitably involve at least a superficial level of blending in. “Second, I have a cousin to contact.”

Kevin’s eyebrows climbed, but he didn’t protest step one or two. Only, “Why haven’t you before?”

Because Nicky Hemmick was undoubtedly under strict watch, with his phone, if not computer, tapped. Andrew wasn’t sure he’d even be aware Aaron Minyard had entered his host country.

If he was, Andrew needed to know. 

If he wasn’t, Andrew needed to make sure the Moriyamas didn’t get it in their heads to pit cousins against cousins. He’d never met Nicky Hemmick and had nothing except the darkest feelings for his father, but Aaron had spoken favorably of him. His twin would most likely want to meet their cousin again. Andrew wouldn’t mind ensuring that; Aaron didn’t have much he spoke favorably about, before or within Evermore.

“I don’t know,” he answered, his gaze level on the other sentinel, because they had to know, they had to be sure, they needed to know if familial ties would be an issue for Kevin as much as they would be for a Minyard, “why didn’t you ask Wymack to come with us? You knew what they’d do to him. There was no way he’d walk away from three escaped wards and one dead Moriyama, spare son or no.”

Kevin froze. When he thawed, he looked as if he’d been kneed in the gut.

Ah.

So Wymack would be a problem.

Under his hand, Neil began to sit up. Andrew cut a quick glance to him, but he looked worn and thin, he smelled exhausted and burned out, he felt ready to get back up and fight.

“What are we going to do in Germany?” He asked, as if he didn’t know the answer. 

He also took a deep breath, steeled his ragged nerves, and reached a hand for Kevin. 

While he fought with his pride in taking the offered help, Andrew murmured, “Find my brother. And maybe raze the rest.

“On the way home,” he added, “or the way there. I’m not picky. Hell, we could take a layover in England. Drop in to say hi to your uncle.”

“Since when are we about revenge?” Kevin growled, a bit of heat returning to his face. He didn’t step forward to take Neil’s hand; he tightened his grip on his elbows, his stance rigid. 

Good. That was good.

“Since, loathe as I am to admit it, they were right. We won’t be free until they’re gone.”

“All of them?”

“Not all of them,” they would be dead before that, he was sure, “only the ones in our way.”

“Does that mean we’ll join--?”

“Does it?”

Silence. Neil’s hand fell back to his knee, his eyes staring into nothing.

“We could offer them assistance in Germany,” Kevin hedged, voice strangled even as he made his proposal. Running from the Moriyamas had been one thing, and one big, _big_ thing at that. But they had allowed unauthorized torture; they had shown little care for Neil and Kevin’s chances to prove themselves; Evermore Laboratories had made it clear they valued blood over skill, no matter how much Kevin had tried to (and continued to) deny it. But they were still _the Moriyamas._ They were still the Masters. They were the best at what they did, they were respected, they were rich, they employed the lead scientists and the elite fighting force. Whoever they put their weight behind would win. And whoever didn’t step in line would lose. 

It was one thing to run from the organization that had raised him. It was another to acknowledge their faults, their successes, and still believe anyone had a chance to fight them, let alone three _cowards._

Andrew added, voice dripping in dark, cheerful sarcasm, “They’ll probably pay for our plane tickets.”

“As if we’re in need of charity.”

“They’d supply us with weaponry and intel. They’d set us in the direction we need to go and make sure we don’t make a mistake getting there. Which,” Kevin added, still uncomfortably and still hard-edged, “after so long out of the field, we’d need the back-up.”

“And then we cut and run?”

“And then we negotiate,” Neil spoke, sudden and weak in tone but resolve solidifying underneath. Andrew stopped his absent circles on Neil’s neck, watching the other carefully from the corner of his eyes as he took a slow inhale and a slower exhale, head lifting just enough to look up at them.

He was a fighter. Despite that fact, Andrew kept his hand where it was.

At Kevin’s uncomprehending expression, Neil elaborated, “With the resistance. You two, at least, are worth enough for a two year chase across the country. They’re either dedicated or desperate; give them a taste of success in Germany, and make anything further on your terms.”

“We’d be stepping back into a cage,” Andrew murmured, edges sharpened to cut. “By your plan, we’re putting collars on our necks and handing them the leash. I thought you were supposed to be good with exit strategies, _Neil Wesninski._ Or are we the only reasons you’ve remained free this long?”

“One slip-up,” Neil retorted, “one missed step, one _work-related accident_ , and I’d be out of the picture. Without me, you two are sitting ducks.”

A statement not born of arrogance but, rather, simple truth. It carried no hint of self-derision at his lot in their life, but all the same, Andrew found his fingers tightening on Neil’s neck.

A warning: _think yourself lesser and you’re already letting them win._

Neil swallowed at the pressure. More of himself returned, fear settling into determination under his skin. 

“You two are what they want. If the Moriyamas can’t have you, they’ll make sure no one can. The resistance can’t be that different. But if you set the terms, you decide what type of collar, you decide how long the leash goes. A cage of our own design,” like this home, like the dog, like Exy, “is better than one made by them.”

Again: silence, though it didn’t last near as long or cut as sharply.

“And if the resistance is desperate,” Kevin murmured, both pairs of eyes snapping to him, “and they fall after Germany, then we have one less company to run from.”

Andrew whistled, low and somewhat, kind of, vaguely appreciative.

“My, my. Your spine’s been straightening without the Masters’ whip on your back. And here I’d thought it was gone for good.”

Tension broken, Kevin shot him a scowl.

Neil looked up, then, toward Kevin, his earlier, panicked shaking having shaken something loose. He looked smudgy at the edges, as if his harder shell had at last fallen away and the soft underneath was crumbling. It wasn’t a good look: it was, pure and simple, raw vulnerability, a Neil wobbling precariously on the cliff of resignation.

It was uncomfortable. It looked like _I’m proud of you_ had felt, and it wasn’t something Kevin was in any way equipped to handle, even two years later. 

There was a question there. An old fear, a new awe. Neil wouldn’t give it voice directly, not after so long. He looked like he wanted to, maybe; unlike Wymack, he wasn’t standing in the midst of his death’s opening act.

Kevin met his eyes, knowing his own expression abruptly teetered close to uncertainty. 

Finally he found words for he had always and, as far as he could tell, would always mean. Stepping into the living room, trying not to take how Neil tensed personally, he softly pled, “Stay with us.”

Neil didn’t move. Kevin watched him a moment longer, the conviction behind those words sinking in.

Andrew and he had made promises, but Neil hadn’t. Neil always needed an out, always clung to a possible exit. 

For what they were going to do, he couldn’t keep a door open. In no scenario did a Neil with one foot out of their collective grave end in anything but disaster.

Thoroughly discomforted by what was left behind in Neil’s expression, Kevin glanced away to the curtained window. 

Taking up the helm, Andrew murmured, “I need your word.”

Sounding worn and disbelieving all at once, Neil replied, “A deal?”

“If that’s what you want to call it.” A beat. “Promise me you’ll see this to the end of Germany. That you’ll be here to keep us moving until then.”

 _Ask for longer,_ Kevin thought. _Germany is so close._

That was, perhaps, the point.

“If I do promise that?”

“In return, I’ll have your back.” Because Andrew would never speak for someone else in a matter like this, not where it counted. But in the end, because it was also true, “You’ve seen us in action. I don’t think I need to convince you of our abilities.”

“Against the _whole_ of the Moriyama family. Against the,” a slight stumble, a small pause, barely anything, “Butcher of Baltimore.”

Andrew wasn’t fazed.

Calmly: “Is it a deal?”

“Yes,” Neil whispered. “Always.”

“Don’t give me that,” Andrew replied, even as the tension left the room and him, too, assurance reclaimed by Neil’s agreement. It wasn’t something Kevin would have noticed before they’d settled in California, this visage of an Andrew that _wanted_.

Then again, for Evermore, the proper question was whether or not Andrew _had_ wanted.

“A month,” Neil said, his knee bumping into Andrew’s for whatever reason, the solidification of their unit and their goal settling fast (as if the feeling had been waiting for the verbal confirmation, and nothing had really, truly changed), “let’s take a month. Since Andrew never got card, we’ll have to let them come to us. Besides, you two need to learn German.”

Kevin sniffed. “You don’t?”

Neil replied in the negative and then spoke a few lines extra. Andrew didn’t need to know German to appreciate the on-spot accent and fluency. 

Kevin ran a hand down his face, fingers tending toward the right, and groaned, “Since _when?_ ”  


* * *

  
It didn’t solve all their anxieties or problems, but it was a plan.

As Neil said, they needed to wait for the resistance to appear again (or the Moriyamas; whichever, really). They went about their days as normal, with the slight addition of Neil giving them a crash-course in German while Kevin drilled them at night on old hand signals and military code. Neil returned to jogging at odd hours. Kevin took Shelly on walks. Andrew improved his aim with new throwing knives.

They didn’t acknowledge what they would lose. Not out loud.

But every moment, they appreciated what they’d managed for longer than they could have thought possible. There was nothing quite like a deadline to make every second count.  


* * *

  
_Be back by twelve,_ Kevin had instructed him before he left for that night’s lone run. It gave him an hour. It felt like no time at all, but then he hit the road running, cleared his head of the built-up static, understood he shouldn’t have been leaving them for a second with who could be lurking around the corner, and took what he was offered.

It would end whenever the resistance made their move, anyway. He couldn’t imagine an organization that had any hope of fighting the Moriyamas to act any different from them. The so-called ravens were the best for a reason, the least of which was the tight leash they kept on their employees. _That_ chewed at him, the encroaching collar and chain. It made him feel sick day in and day out, anxiety rolling in waves until his mind gave up the fight for a blissful hour or two of nihilism and then cycled right back into fraying his nerves. 

But it wasn’t enough to inspire regret or make him consider backing out: Kevin would thrive working toward a larger goal, and Andrew would once again have his brother. 

Whatever it cost Neil didn’t matter. He’d been living on borrowed time since his mother’s death. He _should_ have died in Evermore Laboratories. What they had here had been a fantasy since the start; he should’ve known it couldn’t last the moment he’d been able to pick up an Exy racquet.

(Kevin had blown _that_ yesterday, which Neil was _not_ as forgiving of, but Kevin beat himself up about it enough that Neil decided to hold off his biting commentary for another twenty-four hours.)

An hour wasn’t long, but he pushed himself until he could scarcely breathe and, brain as pleasantly fuzzy as his body, bought himself an extra twenty minutes by texting Andrew, _want anything?_ and receiving an order for _butter pecan_.

After taking a second to catch his breath outside 7-Eleven, he welcomed the interior’s lack of humidity immensely. 

The lack of a familiar face at the counter made him stop dead in the entryway, chest heaving and mind insisting on the worst. A quick glance around the shop proved Matt Boyd had not so much disappeared as relocated himself to restocking the Miller Lite six packs on the back aisles. The man wasn’t tall enough to reach the top shelf without straining to his tip-toes, though the clean lines of muscle his arms cut proved nothing else about the transfer was difficult.

Uniform green rode up his back on the stretch; Neil’s eyes dipped to exposed skin, an unusual blemish off the side of his spine registering as unusual.

He saw a bullet’s messy exit wound, one that hadn’t healed well (or hadn’t received care immediately), recognizable from the few he saw in his own reflection. It looked painful. It looked like something that was an inch from costing Matt his life.

It matched the needle tracks up his arms in the sense that desperate addicts made poor life decisions in the company they kept, and the presence of drugs would explain why he hadn’t received professional care.

That was one possibility.

The second wasn’t as kind.

“-- Holy shit!” Box nudged into place, Matt turned, caught sight of his customer, and practically jumped out of his skin. “Jeez, James. Say something, would you? Like, _hey, Matt!_ ”

 _Stop,_ he reminded himself. _You’re being paranoid. Save your energy for a real threat._

“Hey, Matt,” Neil parroted, breaking off his stare as he forced himself to continue toward the freezers.

“Hey, James,” Matt called after him, his habitual friendliness sounding somehow warmer.

On this night in this week, it twisted his stomach into an uncomfortable knot. He wasn’t sure when he’d gotten used to the idea of seeing Matt every few days, but he had. Soon, he’d pay for it. 

_Maybe._

Possibly.

Unlike Andrew, he still had a sense of regret.

(He’d think, _unlike Andrew, I still feel loss_ , if he were actually the idiot Andrew’s word choice made him out him to be.)

Matt hummed a mindless, catchy pop song that he’d undoubtedly sigh at Neil for not knowing. 

When the humming stopped, Neil blinked himself back into the present. He’d brought the ice cream to the counter. Matt, scanner in hand, raised an eyebrow at him. “For somebody about to bring home a pint of butter pecan, you’ll looking tense. Rough day?”

The warm note hadn’t left his voice even with the addition of genuine concern. It took Neil a moment more to place it, but if he stretched his memory, he eventually found the word that fit: _fond._

It wasn’t a tone anyone other than a relaxed, blissed out Kevin Day used in Neil’s direction, a combination of which was few and far in between if not an outright paradox unto itself. Andrew had his own version of fond, manifested in fingertips brushed over Neil’s knuckles or a kiss pressed to his forehead or a hand cupped on the back of his skull, cheek leaned against cheek; moments given more freely than Kevin’s words, but no less valuable.

It’d taken Neil ages to name his own. For a while, he’d feared he didn’t have it left in him. He was sure he’d felt it toward his mother, but as time moved on and her memory faded, the warmth faded with her.

But then there was Kevin, fond between his criticisms, and Andrew, fond in his silence, and - different, no less important - Matt, fond as most people were fond of those they spoke to on a regular basis.

For that taste of normalcy, Neil answered honestly. 

“Trevor got banned from the Exy club.”

(Okay, he wasn’t that far gone. He answered in partial honesty.)

Matt quickly stifled a surprised laugh behind a hand, his bemusement growing. “Sorry? He got… why? Did they finally get so sick of his complaining that they kicked him out?”

The comment startled Neil into a quick smile. Kevin called it _advice_ , but there was only so much advice people playing Exy as a relaxing hobby could take.

Sadly: “No. He checked a player too hard and refused to take the red card.”

In fact, he’d argued to a silent, tense car that it hadn’t been out of line the whole way home, and that he shouldn’t have been made to sit on the bench.

 _It doesn’t matter what you think,_ Neil had snapped back at him. _Now you’re out. Now we’re all out._

That had shut him up and started his downward spiral toward self-deprecation. It hadn’t made Neil feel much better.

Matt asked, “Isn’t shoving part of the game?”

“Not if you crack three of their ribs.”

Eyebrows climbing ever higher and rocking back on his heels, he whistled in slightly horrified awe. “Jesus. What’d the guy do, insult his mother?”

Neil didn’t even entertain the idea of telling Matt the full truth; it raised too many flags, even for someone who had never seen Neil and Kevin together.

So, another partially honest answer. “It’d been an unlucky angle for the other guy more than anything else. _Technically_ , the check had been legal, even from a striker to a backliner. If he would’ve apologized and not acted like a dick about it, he wouldn’t have been banned.”

The truth was, if Kevin had apologized and accepted his red card gracefully, he probably wouldn’t have been banned. Suspended, maybe. Banned, no.

The truth was also, the backliner had hounded Neil the entire first half of the game, hurling insults at every possible turn and crowding into his space whenever the opportunity arose. In hindsight, as Neil was irrevocably the best player on the team, the targeting made sense. At the time, Neil had worked himself into believing the man had a knife or Taser hidden somewhere in his armor, and very nearly requested a swap-out with the sub striker just to get some breathing room, since their own backliners were too inept to keep him off his tail. 

Whether it was Neil’s agitation or irritation at their teammate’s incompetence or pent-up stress from the clock ticking down to their freedom’s end, Kevin had taken matters into his own hands.

As Neil said. It was a legal check. Kevin was too proud to take a cheap shot.

It was more that typical Exy gear didn’t take an unrestrained sentinel’s raw strength into account.

Andrew had forbidden Exy talk once they reached the house, which was probably for the best but still didn’t do much to help Neil or Kevin’s sour moods.

(At this point, nothing seemed like it’d lighten their moods.)

“Huh.” At last bagging the ice cream, Matt shook his head. He seemed oddly amused. “You all quitting with him?” 

“We’ll be moving soon,” Neil allowed, taking the bag, “so it’s probably for the best we quit sooner than later.”

“Better than disappearing,” Matt agreed, amiable. Then, brows furrowed, “Wait. Moving where? You’re going to leave me alone for the night shift? Who am I going to complain about weirdo conspiracy theorists with?”

Neil felt his smile fail before he even tried for it, and settled for a one-shouldered shrug. “Sorry. Greg’s moving closer to family; Trevor and I can’t really afford the place by ourselves.” Before Matt could continue questions down that line, a thought came to mind and Neil followed it immediately. “We’ve been looking for someone to adopt our dog, actually. She’s loud, but she’ll keep you on your toes.”

“Ooh, no,” Matt replied, hands up and palms out, head shaking. “I’ve heard enough stories about Shelly the Terror to know she would not get along in Dan’s and my little apartment. Sorry, man. I could ask around, though, if you’d like?”

That’d be good. They couldn’t possibly take her with them, but they really didn’t want her locked up again, and whatever his past entailed, Matt obviously kept decent company now. He was genuinely happy with his lot, anyway, which was a marvel from Neil’s standpoint.

Bag in hand, Neil -- part impulse, part practically - dug out his phone. It most likely ( _most definitely_ ) wouldn’t last beyond recruitment, so it wouldn’t hurt to give out his number now.

Matt looked more surprised than Neil would have expected, but then, he had been cagey about his life. 

Trying not to worry if he’d made some faux pas, he said, “Alright. You could text me if you find anyone before I come in again.”

Recovering from his wide-eyed stillness, Matt slid over his own phone and pulled up his number. “Sure. Sounds good.”

Matt’s smile was _fond_ despite a slightly saddened edge.

Neil didn’t let himself think too much on that, either. They exchanged numbers, they said good-bye, Neil took his ice cream and, for what could easily be the last time, went home.  


* * *

  
“Hello?”

Neil and Kevin slept on, oblivious to their missing bedmate. 

Said bedmate sat at the kitchen table, one hand holding his black phone to his ear and the other scratching at the itchy skin under Shelly’s loose collar. The dog flopped her head on his leg, watery eyes gazing up at him.

On the other end of the line, his cousin sing-songed, “Helloooo? Anybody there?”

He’d found Nicky’s contact information from jumping through a few Facebook and Google related hoops. All signs had pointed to Nicky’s health, but he never made it a habit to trust other’s information. He wanted to check for himself.

He needed to check for himself. If Hemmick wasn’t fine, plans would change. They’d need to fly to Germany sooner, for one; they’d have less time to play at being good little soldiers for the resistance, for two. 

A background voice, masculine, asked a question. It was in German, too indistinct and fast for Andrew to make out. It wasn’t Aaron’s, which was more important.

Nicky replied in rapid German. Andrew caught _number from America_ and interpreted, _no one’s responding._

He sounded fine.

 _Respond,_ something quiet and weary urged Andrew. _Say something. Change your voice. They can’t be recording everything. After two years, how closely would they bother watching?_

The same part pointed out, _On record, you’ve never met him. They have no reason to think you’d care about him._

That quiet, weary, old part of Andrew yearned.

“Uum,” Nicky mumbled, once more in English, “last chance, whoever you are. You there?”

 _You’re creeping him out,_ something else informed him. Andrew had no qualms with blaming Neil for that one.

It, unfortunately, wasn’t wrong.

A dragged out, “Ookaayyy,” and shorter, grumpier, “weird,” and then the connection beeped, and the line cut. 

Shelly whined, claws clicking on the kitchen tile as she shoved her head harder against Andrew’s stomach. Obligingly, he set the phone down on the table and scratched through her short hair with both hands. She settled with a big sigh, eyes closing.

In the dim kitchen, everything within still as the dead, he wondered at the yearning even as he waited for it to pass.

It would be interesting if they devised a way to manifest emotion like they had a superhuman weapon. What would awe look like laid bare on a steel table; he wanted to know what a cross-section of desire might be; he imagined a network of fraying, loose wires, of weakly sputtering sparks and fleeting impulses. That it contained any energy at all would baffle reason and make a fool of logic.

That was what he thought whenever emotions came to his doorstep. That was, not to be redundant, how he _felt:_ a human-shaped manifestation of _how_ and _what for_.

Fortunately, the feeling didn’t take long to pass. It rarely did.  


* * *

  
The exception was, of course, in this: Neil stumbling out of the bedroom, muzzy-haired and sleepy-eyed. Neil, spotting him and frowning, asking, “Did you sleep at all?”

“We don’t need as much as you,” he replied.

A frown became an unsatisfied scowl became a fond huff. “You still need to eat, right? They haven’t engineered photosynthesis into your fancy super-genes yet, have they?”

“Do I look green?”

“In general, or right now?”

Without reason or thought, _feeling_ nestled under Andrew’s skin. It sank deeper into sinew and bone as Neil padded to the fridge for eggs, butter and cheese in Andrew’s silence, as he kicked the door shut and moved along in search of a frying pan. As he shooed Shelly from tangling up in his legs. As he didn’t ask Andrew, who had felt too much for the early hour and the entire day and maybe the entire week, anything except, “You want ham in your omelet?” and glanced back so all Andrew had to do was nod.

He made breakfast. Andrew watched, still and silent, the loose wiring in his head and heart sparking to life.

Within it, he found the time to wonder at Bee’s last message. The physical copy was long gone, of course. Even if it hadn’t been signed, it wasn’t worth the risk of someone tracing it back to her.

(The chocolate bar, though; he still had that, melted and stale and flavorless as it’d most likely become in the bottom of his bag.)

_You’re strong. You’re alive. You’re human. You will always matter to those who matter._

The smell of cooking lured Kevin out of the bedroom, feet dragging and expression even more drowsy than Neil’s. He gave Shelly an absent pat on the head and Andrew one heavy pat on the shoulder, hand squeezing once with enough strength to remind Andrew of what they had been engineered to be. Mumbling something that Andrew was sure had to do with good smells and early morning hunger, he wandered to half-drape, half-lean on Neil, his face tucked into Neil’s neck.

The affectionate cuddling wouldn’t last once he properly woke up, but Neil swatted at him all the same, complaining lowly about overbearing sentinels getting in the way of him going anywhere.

As such meager protest would not dissuade a half-asleep Kevin Day, he persisted in clinging. 

In the dark of the morning, in the hiss and spit of eggs frying in butter, in Kevin stealing a sloppy kiss from Neil before being pushed away due to his morning breath, Andrew _felt._

The sparks had nothing to catch on. They’d fizzle out if left alone, choked by the empty expanse that made up his insides.

But Neil bumped his knee under the table as he delivered breakfast on gaudy, cracked plates, and Kevin didn’t resist when Andrew drew him in for his own morning kiss, and the dog begged for scraps the second they were all seated, and between all that, between so much life, between all those who mattered, his feeling sparked into wildfire.  


* * *

  
On the third Thursday out from their first run-in, they made their dinner date at the Chinese Gourmet right on time.

Without Exy, days crawled by. Kevin snapped at them to go without him, but of course they couldn’t do that, not in the least because of Kevin’s begrudgingly relief when they refused to leave. Tension continued to string tight between Neil and Kevin and, bit by bit, Neil and Andrew and Kevin, as Andrew shut down Exy-related complaints and bickering without remorse. Games were banned from the television. Even their gear was hidden away, Andrew refusing to tell either of them where he’d put it.

 _What do you need it for?_ He’d reply to a seething Neil or Kevin. _Your fuck up cost us the game._

They bristled. They sulked. They forgot the ordeal during bits and pieces of a given day, over breakfast or at work or during an interesting marathon on the History Channel, but never for long.

Their seven o’clock dinner at the Chinese Gourmet was one of the _in between_ times. For one, they had food to focus on.

For two, when Andrew pushed open the door to the jingle of the welcome bell and found Allison, her friend, and another woman sitting in their typical spot, whatever personal qualms they had between them flattened into inconsequential drivel. 

Allison, no sign of bruising left on her, curled her lip at the sight of him. Her friend had to crane her neck to see them enter, which was really a poor choice in seating on her part. She scowled.

The third, her white-dyed hair dipped in rainbow and a silver cross around her neck, gave them a small, closed-mouth smile.

Behind him, Neil stiffened in recognition.

Behind Neil, Kevin breathed a curse.

Andrew didn’t need to take a deep breath to smell the chemicals on her. Under the smell of cooking food, customers from all walks of life, the Zhao family’s individual stamp of mildew and spices, the pungent stench of another sentinel threatened to clog his throat. 

Given Neil’s recognition but the third sentinel matching no Evermore-employed face he could recall, he made an educated guess that he now had the honor of meeting Renee Walker. 

_The one that got away._ The one that had, in a way, sparked the final stages of their escape.

By design, they were territorial creatures. They were supposed to be territorial for their creators, not themselves.

Andrew had arrived to his operation with a possessive streak. It hadn’t lessened one inch since. He didn’t bother fighting it, intertwined as it was with making life easier for him and his. 

With that in mind, he turned his eyes from the trio of women and pointedly continued on to the front. Neil, because he wasn’t as suicidal as he liked to act, followed. Behind him, a step slower, Kevin.

They ordered, as usual. They ignored the stares at the back and the odd look the teenaged girl - Jodie, most of the time; Yixin, sometimes - at the register gave them as well as the mother’s closer, guarded inspection. Andrew would have liked to say Kevin was unusually quiet, but in truth, the quiet matched the six out of eight years Andrew had known him. Especially the latter half, after Jean clicked for Riko and Kevin had been shifted to the slow track with the rest of them.

Mrs. Zhao told them their food will be ready in ten minutes. Andrew nodded, Neil thanked her, and Kevin turned.

(Amazingly, Neil was nothing but steady at his side. It was, Andrew thought, resignation. A man could run for only so long.)

(Maybe he also finally believed in Andrew’s protection.)

(Who knew. Certainly not Andrew, Neil or Kevin.)

They went to their usual spot. Andrew led the way, Neil a step behind, Kevin a step behind him. They sat like that, too, Neil boxed between his sentinels.

Typically a table with four chairs, one of the women had kind enough to drag over another table and bump the seating up to six. It was Renee, probably; Allison and her friend looked like they’d much rather be confronting Andrew and Kevin in a dark alleyway, preferably with the element of surprise on their side.

Oh, but that was nasty thinking. If that proved true, he’d have to contemplate revising their plan. The resistance, no matter how much they wanted two functional sentinels, could not possibly look kindly on having their recruiters killed.

A by-product of their recent immigration and, perhaps, poor past experiences, the Zhao family minded their own business and didn’t fancy tying themselves up with any American authority. That plus their good cooking made the Chinese Gourmet a fine establishment to build a routine around. And they had. Somehow, they had. There was a cyclical irony in the first place they grew comfortable returning to being the first step toward leaving what they’d built that Andrew did not in any way appreciate.

He appreciated how, after taking his seat, Neil leaned forward with his elbows on the table and asked, oh-so-kindly, “Does your boyfriend know you’re here, Dan Wilds?”

He appreciated it because Dan openly grimaced, her hand flinching up to pull at a loose strand of curly hair.

He didn’t appreciate the shark’s smile on Neil’s face for what it meant about his current mental state, but that was neither here nor there. 

Allison’s lip curled higher.

Renee’s smile faded.

“In fact, he does,” Dan answered. It sounded honest, if only because it also sounded uncomfortable. The show of weakness was interesting. “And he didn’t think we should do this here, but we were running out of options and time.”

“Three weeks later, and you still call it urgent? How telling.” Andrew flippantly remarked, leaning back against flimsy plastic as he surveyed each in turn. 

They didn’t appear to have weapons on them.

Well. Not true. They had brought Walker.

Eyes on her, he decided to address _that_ multi-colored elephant in the room. At the same time, she opened her mouth and beat him to it.

“Nice to see you again,” she told Kevin, her eyes sliding away from Andrew’s to the other sentinel, “and under better circumstances.”

“Don’t count your eggs before they hatch,” Andrew murmured, too low for the Zhao family to pick up and barely loud enough for Neil, never mind the unenhanced women across the table, “this night may still end in one of your friends broken and bleeding.”

Renee answered, evenly and perfectly audible to anyone in the vicinity, “You’re taking the time to speak with us. I’d like to take that as a positive sign.” 

He didn’t argue that they were the ones invading their home. They could have left. They could have started a fight the moment they stepped into the restaurant.

That Andrew gave her a flash of his teeth and Neil’s smile faded to cold suspicion, that Kevin stiffly cut in, again pitched too low for the Zhao family to hear, “I’d hope you’re professional enough to keep civilians out of it,” that tipped their hand, certainly. They were interested. Walker, at least, knew it.

Dan and Allison looked like they had second thoughts, but it was far too late for them to back out. 

Walker responded, “The foxes aren’t that bad,” to which Kevin responded with a skeptical noise from deep in his throat.

Awkwardness forcibly put behind her, Dan started to add her two cents. Andrew interrupted her without so much as a glance in her direction. “Oh, look. Our food. We didn’t get enough to share. You don’t mind waiting, do you? It’s tasteless to talk business over dinner.”

“As if you were raised with any sense of manners,” Allison bit back.

Andrew didn’t bother with a reaction. She was, as far as he could tell, the least important piece at the table.

As the other two had arrived without her before, it was unlikely Walker had bonded with either of them. As for how much they knew about Neil’s arrangement with Kevin and Andrew, it would be too good of luck if they hadn’t realized the connections. Good fortune was not, ever, on their side. Andrew would presume they had every file and record of their time in Evermore, and extra besides from whatever shadows they’d watched from in Kid Valley. 

The thought warmed the blades against his skin. But, really, there was nothing to be done for it.

The food arrived. 

They ate.

It took three minutes for Dan to break into the silence with, “This is ridiculous. I’m not here to play power games with you, Mi--”

Renee shushed her, at once polite and affectionate.

Dan subsided for less than a minute, and then grit out a stray comment to Allison that sounded like the continuation of an old conversation. She replied, nose turned up at the quieter, male half of the table. Dan grumbled her way into a digression. Renee picked it up and ran.

Soon enough, the three were chatting amiably about random events of seemingly no importance.

Andrew couldn’t help noticing Kevin’s disapproval of their conduct rising with every passing second, though he remained as silent as Neil and Andrew.

It wasn’t enough to dispel the tension and aggression built up in him, but -- Kevin’s look was a better breed of familiar. Easier to swallow, at least. Endlessly easier to watch.

Dan and Allison were too involved in a discussion to notice they’d ran out of food. Renee sent the three outsiders a knowing look, but didn’t, in fact, draw her comrades’ attention to it.

Usually Andrew would order dessert right around then, but he refused to stand and leave Neil’s side. Kevin undoubtedly felt the same, and there was no way all three of them could go without arousing ire on some party’s part.

Oh, well.

Just as Andrew gave it up as a lost cause, Mrs. Zhao appeared at his elbow to drop off three bowls of vanilla ice cream. She waved away Neil’s attempt to pay, saying it was on the house from their regular service, but on Kevin’s quiet insistence she took the bills and told them to stay as long as they liked, them and their three guests.

 _That_ exchanged grabbed the women’s attention, all three heads turning their way. They looked a little shocked. Maybe they’d watched their habits from a distance, but up close was something else.

What Andrew would remember was: she hadn’t said friends. 

(Maybe the Zhao family listened more than they gave them credit for. They did come around every Thursday; maybe he shouldn’t be surprised.)

(It was odd not to feel any aggression over another group paying them more mind than Andrew had assumed, but it wasn’t the worst.)

In any case. There was ice cream to be eaten before it melted.

Dan said, “Uh,” and took another handful of seconds to remember whatever she’d hoped to say when they first arrived. Allison quietly scoffed at her, which got her a friendly elbow in the ribs.

They were open and casual. All dinner, they had been so. It was like Laila, Alvarez and Knox dialed up to eleven, all the ease of friendliness with none of the unspoken Evermore prestige.

By Kevin’s scowl, it wasn’t what he’d expected, either.

Neil kept his head down, as he always had until directly confronted. But by the subtle signs of curiousity - the tilt to his head, the tap of his fingers around his bowl - Andrew knew he hadn’t completely shut down, which reflected interestingly on the recruiters.

But of course, that was their purpose. To lure them in.

It wasn’t surprising, Andrew thought, how easily the three of them fell back into Evermore’s mold. It wasn’t surprising, but it was a little disappointing.

It would take careful guarding to make sure they didn’t entirely lose what they’d found of themselves.

“How about,” Dan said, leaning forward in her seat but vastly more patient than she’d been at the beginning of the impromptu meeting, “we give you our card, and you contact us when you know what you want?”

She hadn’t even made a pitch.

Then again, she didn’t really need to. They were all aware of the enemy, their reach, their power, and the cost of going against them.

“Acceptable,” Andrew answered for them.

Dan’s eyes jumped from him to Kevin, lingered on the bandage on his cheek, and then to Neil, who watched her back from behind the fringes of his bangs.

She blew out a breath, nodded to herself, and dug a white card out of her pants pocket. On one side was stamped an orange fox. On the other, a phone number.

She slid it over to Andrew. She said, “We need an answer by tomorrow. Noon, preferably.”

“After all,” he deadpanned, “time’s running out.”

She rolled her eyes at him, but agreed. 

“You’ll have an answer by noon tomorrow,” Kevin said.

“Good,” Dan said, and then stopped. Blinked. She seemed startled at the ease with which they took the card, and not entirely sure of what she should do now that they weren’t actively fighting her.

Andrew left her to it. He stood, taking one last look at their faces as Neil and Kevin stood with him.

Walker’s knowing look had shifted, though he couldn’t pinpoint to what it had shifted toward.

Her quiet restraint seemed familiar. He wasn’t sure if he liked it or not.

“It won’t be the same.” She said, as if they’d asked. As if it was important. As if it made a difference. “It’s so much better. It _can be_ better.”

She brimmed with hope. 

Not the sort of a do-gooder, quick to burn out and quicker to shy from difficulties. Rather, the sort of someone who had been through hell and a half, and walked out the other side with faith in something better. 

“We haven’t said yes yet,” Kevin told her, voice clipped. She shrugged happily at him, her mouth curved into a private smile. 

“It was nice seeing you again, Kevin,” she said. She didn’t look toward Neil, but he shifted his weight uncertainly all the same. “Your form was incredible, by the way. I had a sore arm for a week after. Maybe next time, we’ll be on the same side.”

“Maybe,” Kevin allowed, even unhappier at her familiarity ( _and the remainder of his last, greatest failure_ ).

Andrew wouldn’t forget her expression. 

He didn’t say anything, however, as he made for the door. On the way out, he raised a hand for an absent wave to Mrs. Zhao, as close to a show of thanks as he could bring himself. 

She waved back, he was sure, but he didn’t look to see it.  


* * *

  
That night, they hid nothing.

For appearances’ sake, they’d kept from blemishes that couldn’t be covered by a low-necked Exy jersey.

That night was more comfort than need, more need than desperation, and more desperation than anything else.

That night ended with Neil’s hand tangled with Andrew in the small space between them, with Kevin pressed along his back and his arm stretched over both Neil and Andrew, with Andrew drifting off with his head angled toward them and to the sound of three steady heartbeats.

That morning saw bruised lower lips and a particularly long trail of purple-red blotches along Andrew’s jawline and quickly fading red scratched just above the back of Kevin’s shirt collar. 

That morning, even as Andrew drew out his phone to make the call before noon, was full of quiet amusement and self-satisfaction on all parties’ accounts when Neil wobbled more than he walked. He accused Kevin’s enhanced genetics of cheating him out of a similar experience, which wasn’t necessarily wrong, but still ramped up the jabs thrown between one another.

They made the necessary call.

Then they took Shelly for a run together. The weather was, after all, beautiful.  


* * *

  
The call went… decently.

“We have conditionals on the missions we’re willing to undertake.”

“Before that, you’ll have to go through initiation like everyone else.”

“Where’s that?”

“We can’t tell you.”

“Of course. You’re a top notch, super secret resistance. That we met three of you, at least one presumably of some importance, in a run-down Chinese restaurant means nothing.”

Dan ignored him, or tried to. Her voice wasn’t too happy, so he didn’t think her very successful.

“Initiation only takes two months. That’s the average time it takes for clearance.” A pause, the phone line silent beyond the ambient noise of a home. Dan Wilds took the call inside a building - her apartment, most likely. Andrew strained to hear Boyd in the background, but the phone’s low quality got in the way. “So… Maybe it’ll be longer for you three, given your track record.”

“Our track record of working with the,” he paused, tested the label, found it lacking, “overgrown birds? The same record that has you interested in us?”

“Yeah, that one,” she replied, obviously unimpressed with his back-talk. Instead of idling on it, however, she continued swiftly with, “But after clearance, you can request what mission you’d prefer to take.”

That didn’t sound like they’d be granted it. 

He wanted to say _we won’t be separated_ for his second conditional, but fortunately, their functionality depended on being a unit. In any case, if the foxes tried to break them up, they’d learn first hand to put their efforts toward something else.

He asked instead, “And to whom do we owe the pleasure of reporting first to?” 

“Me,” she answered, which-- was surprising. Kevin, loitering across the hall from him, frowned at him. Andrew checked his expression again, noted his own vague frown, and smoothed it out. “I’ll be your first and main point of contact.”

He barely resisted a scoff. “Oh, Wilds. As if you could ever control us.”

“Excuse me?”

 _Exactly_ , he thought, but did not reply. Silence was, really, the easiest tool of control, and he considered himself a master of it.

After a second, her voice came back, more irritated than before. “You’ve already met most of your potential unit. Get through clearance, and you’ll find out the rest.”

“I can’t wait.”

“It’s going to be a joy to work with you,” she seethed through grit teeth.

Kevin raised an eyebrow. Andrew didn’t bother dampening the satisfaction he felt at already working under her skin. She was, in a way, like Wymack; he wondered how fresh the loss felt to her, and how she’d react if he brought the doctor up carelessly. Then he weighed that against how it would dig at Kevin and possibly Neil, and decided to keep that particular knife hidden. 

She gave him their pick up location and time, waited a beat to hear his confirmation, and cut the line before he could work in another sarcastic word.

He then collected Neil from the garage and passed on what he’d learned.

Kevin was adamant that she couldn’t actually be their commanding officer given her clear emotional incompetence and possible inferiority complex. Neil was prickly in his silence, his words stiff, distrustful and consistently short even as he moved to pack. 

Two months. That was a long time to wait. Compared to the six years before, it somehow felt like an eternity.

If he focused on the two before him, he could cut the feeling loose, and that, at least, eased the wait.  


* * *

  
Before they left in the early evening, Neil received a text. 

Kevin and Andrew glanced over at the phone’s buzzing, fully aware Neil’s phone should have only had their two numbers. Neil stared at it for a solid few seconds, but then said, “Someone’s willing to take in Shelly,” and on their lack of protest, texted the number back.

They ended up dropping off the dog at a ranch-style house with a giant, fenced yard on the way to the pick-up. Neil and Kevin passed her off while Andrew waited in the van. 

Neil explained her background in full detail, just in case the soon-to-be owner wasn’t aware. As it turned out, Matt had informed her well. She was quite happy to lend a hand to a dog in need, especially as her own had just passed on.

She didn’t even blink at their various lovebites, which wasn’t so much a plus as simply less exhausting than it could have been.

Kevin, meanwhile, gave Shelly a final scratch behind the ears, jaw clenched shut. Under his attention and in a new, exciting place, she wiggled and squirmed, tongue lolled out the side of her mouth.

She tried to follow the two when they moved away, but her new owner - an aging woman with soft hands and kind eyes - held her back. She whined when she clued in to the resistance at her collar, her ears perked and stubby tail stiff. She barked as Kevin and Neil climbed into the van without her. She struggled free from the older woman as they pulled out of the drive, though she was caught before she made it far.

Kevin reached from the back to turn up the radio, but it didn’t really block her distressed howling at their leaving. 

_It’s for the best._

It may or may not have been true. It simply was.

They, as always, moved on.  


* * *

  
Initiation was a highly regulated, training-intensive life in Evermore all over again. Only this time, it happened under the sun in the midst of carved-out Mexican canyons.

They were put with five others, all of whom knew exactly what they were by one glance to Kevin’s cheek and one _incident_ involving a touchy teammate, a grabbed-by-the-arm Neil, and Andrew’s swift, violent intervention.

Needless to say: the others learned quickly that they weren’t going to become a big happy rebel family.

A few whispered that they were turncoats in the making, but the rumors fizzled out quickly: they simply had nothing to stand on.

The three never left each other’s sides. They were never made to. 

Distance suited them fine. Their inkling about the unlucky permanence of their fellow trainees was confirmed when, at the end of fifty-two days, the commander brought Andrew, Kevin and Neil personally into his office to inform them of their placement. Their team would be, as they had been told almost two months previous, with Dan Wilds and her covert team. Renee Walker was apparently a permanent fixture, and while the three sentinels collectively made up over half of the resistance’s total enhanced pool, Wilds’ group was to be the scalpel to the rest of the foot-soldiers’ sledgehammers.

 _Not to say Wilds’ group is any less ragtag than the rest of us,_ the commander quipped.

The trio kept themselves still and eyes forward. It was protocol.

It was exactly how they’d acted the entire training process. Unnerved, the commander released them early with their plane tickets, papers and fake passports. 

Andrew, Kevin and Neil all agreed: the foxes seemed like a soft group, though one with innovative ideas and overwhelming passion.

Then again, the trio’s sole comparison was Evermore.

(Neil couldn’t shake his old gratitude he felt from Dr. Wymack and Winfield’s intervention; Kevin couldn’t forget what might have been, pragmatic though he tried to be; Andrew reminded them both that this was why they’d been freed, words unapologetic.)

Boot camp was brutal mostly because it made them keenly aware of how rusty they’d gotten, and encouraged one by the name of Kevin Day in running his companions harder than ever. Fortunately, the program itself gave them no time for anything like a breather, whether sentinel or human.

Out of old habit, save for the barest day-to-day brushes of sides and knees and knuckles over one another, they kept out of each other’s personal space. Though recruitment was low - or, more likely, _their_ boot camp’s recruitment was kept low, what with the induction of two pricey sentinels - after having each other as the only constants, nowhere felt free from prying eyes. There weren’t cameras in sight, but that didn’t mean anything. There was a certain way organizations had to run, and not monitoring their soon-to-be prized assets wasn’t part of it, lax or not. That, they all agreed on.

At boot camp’s end, they received a call from Wilds an hour before their flight’s take-off. She told them of who to expect on the landing, and, now that they were cleared as proper foxes ready for a bird hunt, to write down whatever conditionals they wanted for their contract with her and her group.

They complied.

They arrived at a small Canadian airport with their list and duffel bags in hand. The bags had been confiscated at the beginning of the boot camp and undoubtedly looked through. Surprisingly, however, everything was returned exactly as they’d left it. 

Andrew was sure the phones were bugged, though none of them could find clues to tampering. If possible, they’d want new ones.

It probably wouldn’t be possible.

Then again, after Matt Boyd, quiet, and Renee Walker, also quiet, escorted them to their group’s safehouse and left them alone in a room with Dan Wilds, she took their conditions with more seriousness than they’d expected.

They’d been careful with their wording and their requests, but it still felt too overt. 

The only thing she said, however, was: “We’re currently waiting for the green light on a raid in a complex in northern Montana. If everything stays on track, which it rarely does, it’ll take at least three months before we can shift priorities to a place like Germany.”

Andrew, his feet kicked up on her desk and head tilted back on his chair, made no reaction.

(She’d tried to glare and snap at him to _not_ , but she’d given up when the two others in the room offered no help and Andrew didn’t budge.)

“But,” she continued, which put a shadow in the middle of Kevin’s brow, “it’d be possible. Word on the grapevine is the higher ups have been eyeing that expansion for ages. If you three think you might have an in, or decent infiltration strategy…”

“We haven’t even been here one day, and you’re looking to us for advice?” Kevin boggled, somehow offended on her organization’s behalf. Maybe it was the fact he was technically now a fox. They hadn’t really had time to discuss anything, not with the constant flow of people around them.

Dan scrunched her nose in distaste at him, but didn’t seem overly concerned. “You have extensive field knowledge from your time with the ravens. Why shouldn’t that be utilized?”

There were a hundred and one reasons why not and Kevin was willing to tell her each one bullet point by bullet point by the look on his face, but Andrew finally dropped his feet from her desk and interrupted the lecture with a neat, “Intel gathering, then Germany. We’ll have a plan ready for you by next month.”

She eyed _him_ , openly suspicious, but had backed herself into agreeing. 

Other than that, she had no complaints about their conditions. One, that they were to remain together for the sake of mission efficiency. Two, that they were to be roomed together, for the sake of efficiency during an emergency raid. Three, that they were to be addressed thus: Andrew Minyard, Kevin Day, and Neil Josten.

On the way out, she did ask Neil, “Why Neil Josten?”

He’d shrugged one shoulder. “You’re looking at him. Nathaniel Wesninski died ages ago.”

That wasn’t strictly true, literally or metaphorically, but with a lack of a better explanation, she accepted it.  


* * *

  
“We’re _foxes_.”

“That is what they’ve been saying.”

“Are you sure? I thought we were on vacation.”

Kevin scowled at their flippant attitudes.

Tucked into their small, bare room in the corner of the plain-on-the-outside safehouse, Andrew and Neil continued their search for bugs and wires while Kevin had his late, reality-warping realization. On the third sweep, the room was still clean, the walls and the vents free of extra electrical humming. But they had the whole evening off to, as Dan put it, get settled. They wanted to make _sure._

“Did you check for loose floorboards?”

“This conversation is incredibly incriminating, Neil.”

“They just watched you turn over the mattress five times. I think we’re past that point, Andrew.”

Meanwhile, Kevin: “We joined the _resistance movement_. We’re gearing for a _raid._ ”

Neil shot him a glance, but as he didn’t seem in the middle of a breakdown, left him to work through his shock and horror.

Andrew glanced over only when someone knocked on the pinewood door. Kevin spun on a heel already looking peeved. Neil shut the desk’s drawer and affected a look of somewhat convincing innocence.

As none of them answered, the person knocked again. 

“Your favorite liar’s here to apologize,” Andrew murmured to Neil, who blinked and mouthed _favorite?_ just as Matt’s voice floated into the room.

“Hey, uh, sorry. I’m not interrupting anything, am I?”

Although Andrew had played mouthpiece for them with all the other foxes, this time Neil moved to answer the door. He didn’t see the point before or after the door opened to reveal a doleful-eyed Matt Boyd. 

The hand that had been poised to knock again dropped quickly to hang, awkward, at his side; he offered a wan smile to Neil as his eyes flicked beyond him to Kevin and Andrew, both of whom stood in the middle of the room staring at the interloper.

Resettling on Neil, Matt filled in the silence with a tepid, “You’re looking decent for just getting back from initiation.”

A few comments sprung to mind. Neil settled on a placid, “It wasn’t my first time through the grinder,” and nothing else.

Matt had been on a job, Neil saw that now. Yet, although clad in a blue t-shirt and tan shorts, not green, he looked as good-natured and well-intentioned as ever. 

That didn’t mean Neil hadn’t spent more than a handful of hours on the plane and in training thinking over how much he actually knew about the man. Part of what he had appreciated about Matt was his normalcy. With that gone, Neil no longer felt sure of what even to call him.

Teammate, he supposed. Or comrade in arms. They didn’t need to be much more than that.

“Right.” Matt swallowed and shifted his weight. “Listen. Since all’s quiet right now, we’re thinking of heading out for a few drinks. Would you want to come?” He paused. Again, flicked his eyes over Neil to the other two, then back to Neil. Added, less awkward, “Any of you.”

Again, Neil blinked.

He’d expected apologies, pleading or otherwise. Failing that, he’d expected Matt to start up small talk, or an explanation that served as his excuse, or a whole plethora of other things to convince him that he hadn’t been in the wrong to watch Neil without his knowledge.

Maybe he was hoping to wait until they were drinking to delve into it.

(It made Neil annoyed just thinking about it, the easy temper he’d once-upon-a-time fought inheriting begging for a chance to ignite after two months of careful quiet.)

“Sorry,” Neil said, forcibly impassive, “we’re busy.”

Technically true. Bug-searching aside, they hadn’t touched their bags. But there were only four, one stuffed with non-essentials: it wouldn’t take long. Besides, they had no idea how often or when they would be given an opportunity to leave for a reason other than a mission. Wilds had said their only restrictions came _during_ work, but just as with the hidden cameras, they weren’t yet convinced.

Neil expected Matt to cut to the chase and begin on his excuses.

He wavered, for sure. But then he nodded with that familiar, easy understanding, fingers scratching at the back of his neck.

“Maybe later,” he hazarded. When Neil didn’t reply and the two behind him remained unblinking, Matt nodded again, said, “Well, you guys will have the place to yourself. We’re not that big of a unit.” 

And he said, “Neil? For what it’s worth, I’m sorry for not telling you the whole truth.”

And, “Dan really does play Exy, though. Our irregular hours makes it hard for her to get in steady practice, but she makes it to a couple of games. If you guys want to keep at playing, I’m sure she could hook you up with a place even this late in the season.”

Neil blinked yet again.

He didn’t say, _here’s why_. He sounded genuine. In fact, right after the offer, he raised a hand in silent farewell and began away.

More confused than angry and more curious than suspicious, Neil stopped him with an impulsive: “Why?”

Stopping to look over his shoulder, Matt didn’t seem to understand the question.

Neil extrapolated. “Why play Exy?”

His brows furrowed, body turning to half-face Neil. “Dan, you mean? She likes it. Why else?”

_There’s preparations to be made, tests to take, missions to conduct._

Neil rephrased the reasons into a simple, light, “It’s wasted time.” 

That, for some reason, startled a _hah!_ out of Matt. Even more confused, he laughed, “What? She doesn’t play on the clock. Just during downtime.”

Neil didn’t have to look back to see Kevin’s glower.

“Oh,” he replied, because it seemed like Matt needed a reply. 

Confusion abating into something inscrutable and discomforting to Neil’s eye, Matt’s grin faded. He repeated, “Hope you’ll be free next time,” turned, and disappeared down the short hall and around a corner.

After his footsteps faded to nothing, Neil shut the door. 

Kevin’s earlier realization was replaced with equally passionate hisses and grumblings over the foxes’ blatant incompetence. They’d have to work three times as hard to keep from dying out of sheer negligence from their teammates, he said. Really, could they even _trust_ the resistance’s intel? 

At that, Andrew said his first comment since Matt’s arrival and departure, a loftily pointed, “Their intel gave us the chance to escape Evermore.”

Glaring, Kevin reached for an argument, but managed nothing better than, “It didn’t last.”

“Didn’t it?” Andrew cranked their little window (big enough for Neil to fit through, close enough to the ground not to be a fatal drop) wider, letting in the city’s sounds and distant chirp of an unseen bird. “As far as I can tell, we’re not in Evermore.”

Kevin glared harder and reached farther for another argument, but managed nothing.

Catching Neil’s glance, Andrew tilted his head forward impeccably.

“The room’s clean.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“That’s asking for a security breach.” Kevin fumed. “We’re on the first floor. We could confer with anyone without their knowledge. They’re--”

“Not Evermore.”

“-- _Soft._ ”

“Same thing.” Neil took the three steps it took to reach Kevin’s side. “Not a bad thing.”

“It is if they want to stand a chance,” he pressed, distress hidden under cold disgust.

Though Nei privately agreed, he trusted Andrew’s inspection and, for the first time in two months, settled a hand on Kevin’s hip, face tipped up toward the other. Not to be so easily placated, Kevin muttered two more criticisms about the safe house's lack of interior monitors and their teammates’ flippant use of time against Neil’s mouth, his fingers dropping to dig into Neil’s hip.

It lasted until Neil hid a wince in a shift of weight and Andrew (eyes open to slits, arms behind his head) warned, “Rein yourself in or back off, Day,” and Kevin forced himself to take the first option and dropped into the flimsy desk chair, hands relocated to run irritably through his hair and scowl firmly in place. He looked like he wanted the drinks Matt had offered.

Left empty-handed in the middle of the room, Neil considered him for a handful of seconds before perching on the edge of Andrew’s bed, his legs pressed to his back.

“In an hour,” spoken after an indeterminable amount of time, though nowhere near long enough for Kevin to calm down, “we should purchase new phones.”

“If we’re staying here,” Neil murmured, “it’s best we learn the town on foot as well as map.”

“And,” as he tipped his knees more into Neil’s back, “cigarettes.”

“This establishment isn’t even equipped with decent exercise facilities,” Kevin groused. Neil didn’t hold back on rolling his eyes. Kevin didn’t care one lick. “Gym. We need to find a good gym.”

“Not tonight,” Andrew murmured.

“Not tonight,” Kevin sighed.

Really, Neil thought, all of their talk was for nothing. Until their first mission or first trial simulation as a unit, they’d have no gauge for how they’d work together. 

Now, teamwork mattered. They weren’t a pair or a trio, they were one part of a unit. 

He couldn’t afford to be picky on how they socialized with their teammates. Offers of outings, if that really was how the others bonded, needed to be considered as a necessary part for the overall whole. 

Before Evermore, he’d honed the ability at getting along with others enough to not be notable or offensive. Here they presumably knew his record, which curiously didn’t bring about anxiety so much as a vague sense of relief (but then, he’d already experienced the worst of those who knew who he was). Here his chances at blending into the background came solely from his position as the sentinels’ companion, which would have maybe been enough if not for Matt clearly wanting to talk _and_ the fact Andrew and Kevin couldn’t be counted on seeing their performance as a team hinging on something as frivolous as emotional connections.

Because, simply put, Andrew and Kevin didn’t have that experience. They never _had_ to get along with people outside of a job. Depending on who thought they could tell him what to do, Andrew almost went out of his way to be a thorn in their side. For Kevin, skill and professionalism mattered most; to allow emotional ties to one person over another to override rational choices was a mark of failure on the individual’s part.

For a moment, he wondered how difficult cohesive integration would be. 

Then the moment passed and, to avoid falling into a cynical trap, he stopped.  


* * *

  
“Don’t drink that.”

“Why not?”

“Matt’s name is written right there.”

“It’s in the communal kitchen.”

“Communally speaking, Mr. Day, that’s _only_ for Matt’s consumption.”

Kevin glowered at Neil first and Dan second. Meanwhile, Neil kept his eyes on the milk carton in Kevin’s hand. It seemed safer than Dan, who had been watching the exchange from the kitchen table, or Matt, who appeared abruptly in the kitchen doorway.

The milk debate probably hadn’t summoned him - it seemed more likely he showed up in search of a snack -, but after a second to figure out what was going on, he offered all the same: “You can have some if you want.”

Kevin shot Neil a look like, _see? It’s fine._

Neil matched it with a raised eyebrow and pointed look at the milk carton in his hand. _Oh, yeah? Then why aren’t you taking a gulp?_

In an order that Neil was very familiar with, Kevin hesitated, glared harder at Neil for causing his hesitation, and then dropped the milk back into the fridge as if it had personally offended him.

“Thank you for the offer,” he said, diplomatic if not for the unhappy undertone. “But we’ll get our own.”

At the table, Dan looked unimpressed while Matt didn’t seem entirely sure how to take the odd rejection. At the kitchen’s other entrance, Andrew shook his head.

After taking a pause, Kevin’s eyebrows twitched downward. He gauged the room, found it lacking in answers, and at last declared: “We _will_ get our own.”

Chin in palm, elbow propped on the table and eyebrow up, Dan replied with a lazy, “Yeah. Heard you the first time.”

Kevin eyed her.

Kevin glanced to Andrew. As he was impassive as always, he was utterly useless to Kevin’s unspoken question.

Matt asked the trio, but most likely Neil in particular, “Did you set up your bank accounts yet?” 

Directions to the nearest branch with enough for a credit account had been in the orientation envelope. Supposedly, it would help their cover. It sounded amateurish.

Keenly aware of how easy it would be to tip the others into outright dislike, Neil replied, “Not yet. Maybe we’ll go today.”

That was a new plan. Andrew didn’t protest and Kevin had no reason to protest, however, so - it would probably happen. Bank accounts and, after, grocery shopping.

It was disturbingly normal. It made them disturbingly independent.

On this surprising development, not even Kevin complained.  


* * *

  
They were idle because they needed further intel.

“Hold on to your horses,” Dan grumbled, “What’s the rush?” and Neil remembered she’d supposedly been close to Wymack.

He almost asked about it. Almost.

Instead, he busied himself with waiting: grocery shopping, and gym memberships, and Kevin’s suspicion on the foxes’ validity growing every day, and Andrew’s --

If Neil didn’t know better, he’d say Andrew approved of their change in masters.

But he did know better. Andrew, rather, settled in to wait, just like Neil.  


* * *

  
Once Andrew had said Kevin was the most obvious about what they all thought, but it was hard to see that when Kevin wanted nothing more than a base to raid and target to acquire.

For all he disdained the foxes’ loose security and loose scheduling, he could be found more often than not in the weaponry room (conveniently located in the uncarpeted basement), running maintenance on the trio’s gear and making lists of small additions that would help improve aim or range or this-or-that lethality. 

Late night sessions were held not for Exy, but refreshing Neil and Andrew’s strategies and tactics. Often, Andrew informed Kevin he knew enough and would zone out from their conversations; more often, if Kevin decided Neil needed something physical to work with, the others at base would bump into Kevin’s impromptu workshop and slide in a few questions of their own. Kevin’s rigid expectations drove them away more often than not, and Allison usually walked by without pausing if someone else wasn’t there to stand with, but Dan would take whatever extra information she could get on Evermore (she’d never been an employee of theirs; Wymack had been something of a foster father to her in a rougher time, and his involvement had led to hers) while Matt didn’t mind the occasional spot of extra advice.

And then, there was Renee.

For the first week she was off-base for, as Dan put it, _recon business_. 

Neil, who grew restless within their bedroom no matter its supposed isolation, had relocated Kevin and Andrew to the television in the main living room while the area was deserted. There, Andrew tilted his head in a clear _I’m eavesdropping on something I shouldn’t be_ movement, raised a small eyebrow, didn’t share the look Kevin sent him, and finally murmured to Neil, “This just in: Walker’s coming home.”

She arrived with no more fanfare than that. Neil almost went back to their room, and Kevin looked to agree with him about a tactical retreat, but Andrew refused to budge and they refused to let each other out of their sights, so they continued to eavesdrop from the living room as the other three woke up to welcome their friend back. 

No word was spoken on the mission within their earshot, though presumably there was a debriefing. 

For most of the night, the others kept to the kitchen rather than the living room. But then Matt stuck his head in and asked if they could use the television in an hour for a movie night.

To Neil’s surprise, Andrew was the one to say, “As long as you don’t expect us to move.”

Matt stammered, “Uh, sure, consider yourselves invited,” and then disappeared again into a conspicuously silent kitchen. 

Kevin’s glance asked, _Wait, why are we wasting time here?_

Neil was curious despite himself and gave a shrug of, _Maybe it’ll be interesting._

Andrew kicked up his feet on the footstool, slung his arm over Neil’s shoulders, hand resting on Kevin’s, and in general took up enough space on the four-person couch that joining them wasn’t anything close to an option. To top it off, he managed to look vaguely hostile while doing it. 

It was ridiculous enough from a position on the inside of his protective ring that Neil didn’t resist the urge to cozy himself up against his side as if that had been the point all along and quip, “Don’t mind me. Just getting comfy.”

On the other side, Kevin’s mouth quirked up.

(He straightened up when Kevin gave his leg a nudge mere seconds before the others piled in, but it softened up Andrew’s expression even as he gave Neil a mild glare, so it was worth it.)

The smell of buttery popcorn filled the room at the same time as the four other’s chatter. Dan, not to have her good mood spoiled by Andrew, didn’t bother asking him to make room; they simply pulled in spare, comfier seats from their own rooms and a few extra blankets from the linen closet, and settled in around the couch, movie hastily set up to play.

Somehow, the two groups avoided touching each other. It helped that in their own twos and threes, they were all piled on one another.

The movie had to do with a large monster attacking a city and the handful of scrambling police officers, an off-duty maverick and quirky but clever journalist included. Which was to say: the movie was instantly forgettable, and Neil’s attention wandered within the first fifteen minutes to the others in the room.

There wasn’t much to learn from something as banal as a movie night. He already knew they had extensive history together and got along fantastically; seeing Dan leaning back against Matt’s chest or Allison and Renee devouring a bowl of popcorn together or Allison and Dan making constant snarky comments about the movie or Renee and Matt analyzing the characters didn’t prove anything new. Their friendship was enough that the new additions’ overall silence didn’t deter their chatter or kill the cheer.

The ease they had was enviable, maybe. He wouldn’t trade what he had for anything, but he couldn’t imagine Andrew, Kevin or himself taking days off from each other and having such a smooth, happy reunion at the end. Hell, two hours apart rattled them.

At one point drinks were broken out, which was also the point that Kevin broke the invisible wall to ask for a bottle of his own. The conversation eased away from monsters and into alcoholic preferences and, mostly from Matt and Dan, a few humourous tales from drunken nights.

When Kevin took all of a minute to down his beer and asked for something stronger, Matt whistled, impressed despite himself. “Is that part of the famous sentinel metabolism?”

“Famous?” Renee wondered aloud, light humor in her voice. “Since when?”

Neil answered for him, eyes kept on the television. “Oh, no. It’s all practice. The metabolism just means he has to drink more to reach where he wants to be.”

“Tonight’s a night to be where you want to be,” Dan piped in. “I think there’s peach schnapps over the fridge. You mind grabbing it, babe? And the orange juice. And two extra glasses. Allison? You want any?”

“Any other orders?” Matt asked, beyond amused.

“Let’s order in pizza.”

“Delivered _here_?” Kevin asked, sharp.

“Domino’s employees are too poorly paid to be on any secret payroll,” Dan retorted, confident and a little affronted at the implication she would jeopardize their safety. “Also, I’m really craving hawaiian.”

Allison made a gagging sound over pineapple on pizza. Dan stuck her tongue out at her as Matt said, “Alright, alright, pizza and booze, the favorite, healthiest staples. Dan, you’re going to have to move your ass if we’re going to get either,” and some shuffling was done to free the one making the call.

The excitement lulled after that and before the pizza. Kevin got his strong drink, and used it to work through his hang-ups over the casual nature of their teammates. Neil, for his part, kept their legs lined up and eyes forward, though his mind strayed to the warmth at his side, catching intermittently on the play of the screen’s light on a pale throat. Much as he reminded himself he needed to keep his guard up, the relaxed atmosphere made it difficult. A petulant, newly formed part of him ached; even if they’d stolen a few kisses the night before, they hadn’t gone farther than that in two months. Compared to the constant casual touches and skin-to-skin reassurances that he’d gotten used to, he almost felt starved. 

He _had_ starved. He knew what it felt like it. The ache in his gut and beneath his ribs came close.

Andrew, still exuding hostility for anyone who ventured too close, remained silent.

(He did, however, accept a beer along with Neil. That put a slight chip in his threatening aura.)

When the pizza arrived - one hawaiian, one pepperoni, one vegetarian - they paused the movie ten minutes from the end to set up the boxes in the kitchen. Loose discussion was made on what to watch next, whether a chick flick or a comedy or another B-list action, but in the end, they let the monster movie’s title screen pop up and formed a loose circle on the floor to chat about their day-to-day. 

Renee, Neil noticed, didn’t say as much as a typical guest of honor would. It seemed more like the others were catching her up than the other way around.

Which, really, fit the atmosphere. The night wasn’t about work. It was about bonding. Relaxing. Having a good time.

It was quietly baffling in a manner Neil didn’t fully realize until Andrew stood, ordered a foggy-eyed Kevin up, and shortly said they were turning in for the night. Dan, Matt and Allison aimed their good-byes to Neil and Kevin more than him, Matt going so far as to say they should do this again soon. Renee, far more egalitarian with her well-wishes, gave Andrew a kind nod and then a, “Sleep well,” for all of them.

Thankfully, Kevin didn’t need to be carried, and they made it to their private room with its private closet and private bathroom and little window without incident.

Kevin, drunk as a skunk, collapsed into his bed without removing any of his clothes, pausing only to groan something about one of them turning off the lights. Neil contemplated him with wry amusement, focusing on the familiar sight to banish the confusion he felt over the night. 

Then Andrew was one step behind and to the side of him, mouth a breath away from Neil’s ear, fingertips light on his hips. Simple things, simple movements, simple touches, but apparently he yearned more for what they’d left behind than he’d thought as his skin prickled and blood warmed.

“She’s interesting,” Andrew whispered into his ear, making him shiver, “Renee Walker.”

Neil doubted that. She seemed as off-beat as all the other sentinels, and caring about two filled up his sentinel quota for a lifetime. He pointed out, “She’s the first sentinel you’ve met that didn’t have a drinking problem in years. That biases a person.”

“As if you’d understand,” he murmured, lips set to the jut of Neil’s jaw.

Reaching back to lace their fingers together over his hips, he cheerily replied, “I’m not wrong.”

“You’re unbearably obnoxious.”

“Still, not wrong.”

“You’ll be interested when you figure out her companion status,” this said with a step forward, his front pressed along Neil’s back. The statement distracted him from the desire thrumming through his veins and jump in his stomach at the proximity, but only just. Before he could ask, however, Andrew went on with: “I sometimes forget how dull your senses actually are.”

Neil squeezed his fingers. “My senses are perfectly average. Yours are grotesque and unnatural.” Then, “If she had a companion, she would’ve taken them on a recon mission.”

The mouth at his jaw moved up to his hairline. 

“Not necessarily,” Andrew hummed after taking a moment to breathe Neil in. Once more under his attention, Neil shivered. “Not if the companion didn’t want to go.”

That--

That. 

Neil frowned, heat fizzling.

“That doesn’t make sense.”

Who would even be her companion? Logically, there were only three choices to pick from, but none fit based on tonight’s behaviour. Dan and Matt had been wrapped up in each other. Allison and her hadn’t been overly touchy. Well, not any more than he, Andrew and Kevin had been, and true to their public personas, they hadn’t been. Not _really._ Not as much as he would’ve liked or how they would’ve been back home, secure and alone.

“Dull,” Andrew said, without heat. “It’s like you’re near-sighted, half-deaf _and_ riddled with arthritis. You might as well be one step away from senility. It’s so human.”

For the first time, Neil wondered. Because he was who he was, he gave it voice: “Do you want to remember what that’s like?”

Close as they were, he felt how Andrew stilled. He oppressed it well, of course; but after this long together, it would be impossible for Neil to miss.

When Andrew began to pull away, Neil tightened his grip around his fingers. Although the mood had dimmed, he didn’t want to part. And so, he asked: “Shower?”

“Yes,” he agreed, which relaxed the line of tension that had at one point strung itself along Neil’s shoulders. Lighter, he mentioned, “The couch stank like them. Kevin’s a lost cause, but our room isn’t too awful just yet. I’d prefer to keep it that way.”

That time when he pulled away, Neil let him go. He could, after all, immediately turn to followed.  


* * *

  
It turned out when Andrew said _the couch stank like them_ , what he really meant was, _I don’t want you smelling like them._

And, in result, he meant: _I want you to smell like us._

Washing clean and being re-scented wasn’t usually such an overt, drawn-out affair, but it had been two very long months.

Weird as _re-scenting_ was to think about.

But that was definitely what Andrew did, from the intimate moments from bathroom to bed and the slightly-too-small, black t-shirt he threw at Neil to wear for pajamas, and the careful arrangement of their bodies in a far-too-small bed. It was a weird worth pointing out, because he wasn’t a piece of territory in need of marking and if he didn’t talk about it then it might not be true.

But all Andrew said was that if he’d wanted a trophy, he’d get one better behaved than Neil.

Warm, sated and boneless, Neil drifted off into a dreamless sleep. It the best night he’d had since they’d signed away their home.

(That wasn’t exactly correct. They hadn’t signed away their home; they were all here.)  


* * *

  
In the morning, Andrew shook Kevin awake for breakfast, and they wandered as a trio into the kitchen.

The hair on the back of Neil’s neck went up at Renee Walker sitting at the table, but it was really too early and he was still feeling too good to stress himself out without provocation. As all she offered was a mild, “Good morning,” he saved his caution for another time.

“Good morning,” Kevin replied, eyes bloodshot and leaning heavily against Neil (more to hold him up than anything else).

“If you want any chocolate milk,” she said, “feel free to take a glass. Allison bought too much and it’s about to expire.”

Allison didn’t seem like the type to like chocolate milk, but that wasn’t a fair thing to point out in response to free food.

In any case, Andrew took her up on the offer without a word of thanks.

Kevin and Andrew took seats at the table across from Renee; Neil kept himself by the counter, eyes on his cereal. After downing two cups of coffee, Kevin began to wake up. After a bowl of brown rice and three servings’ worth of eggs, he woke up enough to take a sniff of the air and wrinkle his nose at Neil.

“Are you serious?” He griped to Andrew, whose reply included a bite of chocolate milk and choco puffs, a raised eyebrow, and the silence of _yes, is there a problem?_

Renee hid a smile behind her mug, her eyes flitting from the sentinels’ exchange to Neil’s. She looked amused. She looked knowing. She looked like she could tell too much about Neil without him ever saying a word, and he didn’t like that at all.

“I’m sorry I missed your arrival,” she said, pulling back the full room’s attention. “I’m sure the others have helped you settle in, but they don’t know the modified routine you’ll need to keep in shape as well as I do. If you’d like to join me, I rent a permanent room at the local gym; it’s filled with the best equipment.”

Even while bloodshot, Kevin’s eyes lit up. “Finally. Nothing we’ve been recommended thus far suits us.”

“I’d imagine.” Somehow, she didn’t sound condescending. She was, as far as Neil could tell, sincere. “I’ll admit, I miss having sparring partners that can match me.”

“Although we’re out of practice, we may be above your class,” Kevin mused. He did sound condescending. He didn’t really mean it.

Renee, fortunately, didn’t ruffle at the tone. She agreed that might be so, as she’d almost been too old for the operation, and only had three years of sentinel-specific training under her belt. She was especially wary of the hold the Moriyama family had on the arms market, especially with the addition of their elite fighting force. 

(She didn’t say that directly, but Neil inferred.)

She did say, “My lead technician treated me like the daughter she’d never had. Even when the rest of the staff began to treat me less than human, she never had. If it hadn’t been for her, I wouldn’t have thought twice about leaving.”

Given Andrew’s lack of a responding insult, that was most likely the truth.

She didn’t mention how she’d come into the Moriyama’s employment beyond an off-hand comment about the Moriyama’s recruitment knowing how to work the underprivileged and hopeless. As half of that fit Nathaniel Wesninski too well, he kept himself silent for the whole conversation.

Kevin bits of his own story. The other two didn’t.

Allison and Dan appeared soon enough, looking as blurry-eyed as Kevin but twice as hungover. Apparently they’d stayed up far after the trio retreated. 

_But_ , Dan swore, _it was great. Absolutely worth it. Hey, cool, left-over pizza. Now there’s a breakfast._

 _All that’s left are slices with your nasty pineapple_ , Allison grumbled back, which was about when Kevin finalized a meet time with Renee and the three took their leave.

“Unbelievable,” Kevin said to Andrew, falling back a step to be shoulder-to-shoulder with him, “all because of Walker?”

“Reynolds stinks of her,” Andrew replied, one hand smoothing along his armband, “what’s that phrase you like so much? Ah, yes. _When in Rome._ ”

Head shaking, Kevin shouldered open their room’s door.

“It’s not the phrase I like, it’s the Roman Republic. Their election of consuls by popular assembly even after creating an empire of tributary states is the fascinating part. -- Wait. Neil.”

Halfway to his dresser, Neil glanced back.

His mind lingered on Andrew’s _not if the companion didn’t want to_ comment from the night prior, and the throw-away implication that Allison _was_ said companion. But it didn’t make sense. What sentinel would be willing to keep away from their companion that long, never mind head into the field without them?

It was a fair thing to wonder, he’d say. He was, in fact, also working over how to word the question to Andrew.

And he would’ve been happy to keep thinking over that before their day’s routine began, but Kevin apparently had an addendum to make to the plan, as within a blink, he was less than an inch from Neil’s face.

“Good to see you’re still freakishly fa--” Neil began, and would have finished, if Kevin wasn’t taken his lack of protest as assent to snag his wrists and jam his nose into Neil’s neck. The suddenness made Neil stumble back into the dresser, its edge digging into his back as Kevin pressed close. Thus far they’d kept to the unspoken _no hickeys that can’t be covered_ rule, but Kevin seemed determined to test it when he sucked onto the band of muscle up Neil’s neck.

Behind him, Andrew snorted. 

Kevin ignored him, moving off Neil’s neck to steal a kiss, deepen the kiss, and then, before Neil had properly processed what they were in the midst of, lean back to thoroughly tousle Neil’s hair, a sharp grin on his face.

As opposed to the kissing and necking, having his hair tousled was like being assaulted by an overzealous older sibling. 

It definitely ruined whatever mood Kevin had been going for -- but, then, Neil wasn’t sure Kevin _had_ been going for a mood. 

Kevin also opened his big mouth to proudly say, “There. I’d have sooner choked with two smoke-stacks sharing my space.”

Neil didn’t have to think about pushing at him to get off. 

When he did finally step back, Neil’s hair was a mess and his shirt had been thoroughly rumpled; Kevin, meanwhile, continued to look satisfied.

Gym bag over his shoulder and expression as amused as Andrew’s expressions ever became (which used to be fairly often, but Neil had started to think he’d left the amusement behind in California), he gave the ruffled Neil an appraising look. He must have approved of whatever he found. 

On their way out, he quipped, “Subtle as a skunk, Josten.”

It was the first time he hadn’t said _Wesninski._

Between that, Kevin almost having fun with messing up his hair and the question of if Allison was Renee’s companion and, if so, how they were able to be apart for a week, it was a fairly baffling morning.

Returning to the full kitchen (it was the only way to get from their room the exit), whereupon Renee murmured something to Allison, who immediately straightened up with a smug look toward Dan and Matt, and, the second they passed through, hearing Allison say, “Oi, pay up,” didn’t help. In fact, it was more confusing.

It just. Wasn’t what he expected. At all.

In deference to the fact they had work to do _and_ the niggling feeling that his confusion could easily resolve into worry over what Renee could discover with just a glance, Neil did his best to put it out of his mind.  


* * *

  
It did prove he’d need a different approach than the one he’d used in Evermore. 

This time as he joined a secret organization by way of dubious consent, Neil looked for the collar that they wanted to wrap around his neck in places other than violence and blackened coercion.

(It helped he wasn’t quite as fearful. It helped he wasn’t alone.)

He saw it in Matt's friendly, unassuming smile and Renee waiting for them come to her about her experience in the resistance; he saw it in Dan's put-upon patience for Andrew's power games; he saw it even in Allison's casual lounging in the communal living room, her eye catching his as he ghosted past.

He recognized the collar’s clasp in himself at night, Kevin booting up a newly bought laptop with a sheaf of files and demanding he sit down to review the target base’s blueprints. The collar tightened as Kevin relaxed into the old process, rust flaking away as the mission goal consumed his focus and Neil did nothing but play to his unreasonable standards for preparation. At midnight, Andrew finished his cigarette at the window, shook ash onto the sill, closed the glass, and hit the lights without warning. As Kevin cursed the interruption, Neil found himself frowning, annoyed for the same reason as the perfectionist. Unlike Kevin, he forgot about it when a deep voice in the dark asked, "Yes or no?"

The collar tightened enough to choke. He suffocated on want and delight, on home and safety, on comfort discovered hardly a week into a new base, because as long as he had them, as long as they were safe, it was alright, it would be okay, it would be all he ever could have needed. Their home in Kid Valley had been kind, and good, and stable, but where he belonged was wherever they were.

The others never once interfered with that.

In fact, they gave adequate space and, if not understanding, then at least time.

There, Neil now understood, was the danger.

It didn't frighten him as much as it should have. Perhaps because he knew Andrew and Kevin could carve their way out of the flimsy excuse for a safe house; more likely, not.

The feeling when he poked and prodded and turned it one way and another resembled nothing he'd felt before. No, no, it could be classed as an evolution from his need to escape. It was just turned on its side and an absolute contradiction.

It was: freedom in attachment.

It was: with you, I'm safe.

It was: with you, there's no limit.

It was: with you, they can't stop us.

There was no fear in the traditional, all-consuming Evermore sense.

Neil feared having no fear and felt nervous at his lack of nerves. Or, he did until Andrew's hand curled around the back of his skull and a hungry mouth found his for the first proper time in two months, and he heard Kevin move their papers and laptop out of the way with a huff about documents being contaminated and his mouth turned down against Andrew's in momentary concern for the files and, "unbelievable," rumbled against his lips, a hand dragging him off the desk chair.

Then, collar looped and buckled around his neck, asphyxiation felt like floating. Here, he didn’t need to run, because they all understood the risks; here, if his father or Tetsuji Moriyama showed up, there were a handful of others trained to raise an alarm before they could reach Neil. 

Then, he had nothing but the moment and next mission to worry about, and those were of no concern at all.  


* * *

  
The time came (not three days after Renee’s return, actually) that Kevin and Andrew met with her for sparring. Neil tagged along both from obligation and curiousity. He sat against the wall next to Allison Reynolds, who was busy enough between her phone and bantering with Renee that she didn’t pay him too much attention.

In the end, he was glad he showed up. 

Originally, they were supposed to trade off in who practiced with who, but Kevin and Andrew knew each other’s tricks like the backs of their own hands, and _moreover_ , it rapidly became apparent that Renee was willing to go farther than a practice session necessitated.

Wary of harming her, Kevin backed down. 

Andrew did not.

“When they’re done, do you want to have a go?”

Neil couldn’t take his eyes off Renee and Andrew. He felt like he missed too much when he blinked.

“Hey.”

They’d decided against knives, and the room was supposed to be secure, but--

“Josten. Earth to Josten.”

Neil blinked and looked to Allison.

She blew a piece of hair out of her face and flicked manicured (but short) nails in his direction.

“There you are. You want to got a round when they’re done showing off?”

“It’d be good for you,” Kevin said from the side. When Neil looked at him, however, he seemed too focused on the exchange of blows between the other two to mind how Neil answered.

Neil turned over the offer.

Rather, he turned over his question.

Looking back to Allison, he asked, “Will Walker rip out my throat if you go too far?”

“I have better control than that,” Allison immediately replied, but she looked - to Neil’s eternal confusion - a bit pleased. “And so does Renee.”

“Those two don’t,” he informed her. Kevin didn’t raise a protest (he had grounds to argue for himself; none for Andrew), so Neil knew he really wasn’t paying attention. “So, for your sake, I hope your form is as good as you claim.”

He received a white-toothed grin. “It is.”

Not five seconds after her answer, Andrew and Renee locked each other into a stalemate and had to call a tie.

Renee was all smiles and Andrew seemed lighter than usual as they split for a break. At the wall, by the water cooler, Kevin chided, _You’re out of practice_.

Andrew retorted without a care, _She’s good_.

And he was out of practice. They immediately set a schedule for consistent, three-days-a-week practice.  


* * *

  
As it turned out: so was Allison Reynolds.

Neither Andrew nor Kevin intervened. It was, all in all, an oddly relaxing experience, even if Neil’s arms hurt after two years of practicing against people who always had to hold back.  


* * *

  
At night, Neil stared at the ceiling and wondered if he should inquire about Dan’s Exy club.

But then the final pieces of intel came through the line, and the whole reason they were where they were moved into motion.  


* * *

  
Two years may have passed since their last official mission, but they proved to be as efficient and ruthless as Evermore could have hoped.

A little rusty. A little sloppy at the edges. A little touch-and-go on the first sign of a Moriyama insignia, Kevin freezing up and turning white as a sheet in the midst of firefight.

But _before_ that, Kevin had shouldered his way into the mission’s forefront with all the zeal of a man burying himself in tactics and papers to forget who precisely they were facing, Dan took a cautious step back to let him at it after Neil’s quiet discussion with her about Day’s record, and the entire unit emerged not only unscathed, but brilliantly successful.

It had been a small operation on a small compound, an in-and-out to snag computer data with casualties kept to a minimum (the only ones to suffer as far as Neil witnessed were security guards of whom shot first), but the Moriyama’s raven insignia printed in the more secure offices and even a few mugs wouldn’t let them forget the larger target.

By Neil’s figuring, it felt like a test run.

By Dan’s figuring, it was a success worth celebrating.

By Kevin’s response, she shouldn’t celebrate something so small, and the unit had communication problems that they needed to fix asap.

By Dan’s retort, the communication problems didn’t stem from the _older recruits._

“She has a point,” Neil told Kevin before he could start in on her.

Cutting him off almost didn’t work, but then Matt proposed a movie before they all nodded off, and everyone else, sentinels excluded, were too close sleep to protest.

It was a strange way to celebrate a successful _raid on a base_ , but then, this was business as usual for a resistance movement. Maybe. Judging by the ease to which the other four took their places in the living room, Neil felt safe in assuming so.

“It’s great you three signed on,” Matt told him barely ten minutes into the mindless chick flick (they couldn’t do action, not after their day; at least, Dan refused to). “We used to be a bigger unit, but… Budget cuts, you know.”

Neil didn’t know.

Matt caught the look and grew a mite sheepish, a bit evasive. “Before we were assigned to help Renee out of the Midwest, we were standard fare. Some missions end with casualties on both sides. There was talk of transferring us apart for good after…” 

He paused.

Neil, still sandwiched between Andrew and Kevin but this time on the floor, waited him out.

The one to butt in wasn’t Matt, but rather, Allison. “You can say his name.”

Looking a touch guilty (Matt was, just as he had been when he’d ‘worked’ at 7-Eleven, fairly sensitive over his own words), he finally continued with, “Seth Gordon was our last teammate. We really fucked up when we lost him. Walker was sort of our last chance to prove we had what it took.”

“If Wymack hadn’t argued for our potential, we would’ve been left to the wolves,” Dan added, her voice tight on the mention of her old comrade.

After a long stretch of silence punctuated only by the actresses’ forgettable one-liners, Matt spoke. “We’ll do him proud. With how we are now, we can make something of ourselves.”

Neil didn’t do well with comforting others. Andrew and Kevin never even entertained the idea. 

So he kept silent, focusing on Andrew’s thumb rubbing light circles into the back of his neck rather than the anger Wymack had displayed on his behalf, from beginning to sudden end.

Barely awake by the movie’s end, they split up in relatively companionable quiet. 

“I’ll meet you at the room,” Andrew murmured to them in an otherwise empty kitchen, which brought Neil to a stop and woke up Kevin.

They hadn’t let each other out of their sights since their induction. Even at an hour that Andrew couldn’t possibly be planning to leave the complex, never mind them, it didn’t feel right.

Indignant and roughened by the alcohol he’d once again attempted to drown in, Kevin found his voice to demand, “What? You’ll--?”

“-- _Meet you at the room._ ” In cool, smooth French, Andrew turning away before Kevin could respond.

When Kevin proved unable to move on his own, Neil helped him decide what he was going to do by continuing the way they had been going. That was: opposite Andrew, and toward their bedroom.

Eventually, Kevin stumbled in after him.

They went through the nightly routine of teeth-brushing and clothes-stripping, but Kevin interrupted it with a sloppy grab for Neil’s shirt and even sloppier, “Sleep with me?”

He didn’t think he’d manage sleep until Andrew returned, but that wasn’t Kevin’s reason for asking. Without comment, he crawled in alongside Kevin; it was a tight fit, again, but unlike sleeping alongside Andrew, there wasn’t any worry over waking up with a fist in the face.

Kevin fell asleep with his ear pressed to Neil’s chest, alcohol lulling him to sleep better than any other trick in the book. Neil, meanwhile, fought to stay awake.

He didn’t fully manage it as he startled out of a doze at the quiet click of a door shutting. Curtains pulled and electronics off, Andrew moved through the room as a black blob against a less black background.

Figuring Kevin was dead to the world, Neil proved himself right when he asked, “Who were you speaking with?” and the sentinel clinging to his side didn’t stir.

The black space that represented Andrew paused. 

“Go the fuck to sleep, Josten,” it said.

“Should we discuss this in the morning when you’re less crabby?” A beat. Andrew moved on to the dresser. Neil continued. “Oh, wait. You’re always an ass.”

As he shucked off his shirt and socks, “It’s my twenty-four-seven speciality.”

Neil hummed, chin pressed into Kevin’s messy, black hair. His arm was going numb under Kevin’s side, but there wasn’t much to be done about that without waking the man up.

In any case, he didn’t ask again. 

He didn’t need to. After brushing his teeth (in the dark, the show-off), Andrew returned to their bed’s side. Voice low, he finally answered, “I called my cousin in Germany.”

“The time zone difference works out?”

“I also learned he’s not a morning person.”

“Must run in your genes.”

The silence had more weight to it, and not just because Neil felt close to falling asleep. It hadn’t been a large operation, but there had been blood spilled not seven hours prior; Neil’s body ached from holding a position for an extended time, waiting for the clear; the talk of Germany reminded him of what was next, and how much higher the stakes could become.

Within the dark, there were also questions to be asked, and answers neither of them particularly wanted to give. Andrew lingered; Neil waited.

Barely audible and heavily slurred, Kevin grumbled, “Are you getting in, or what.”

Neil very carefully did not jump.

The moment broke, its weighted silence spilling at their feet. Voice lighter, Andrew replied, “Move over.”

Two people barely fit. Three people definitely didn’t.

But for this night of all nights, Andrew didn’t mind how his legs overlapped with Neil’s, or how Kevin’s arm snaked under his head.

(He might not have slept, but Neil wouldn’t know, as he definitely did. In the morning, he acted no different, and even elaborated on what his cousin had to say.)

(It was this: _Andrew Minyard?_ followed by _oh my god, of course I remember you_ to _Aaron said he hasn’t seen you in ages_ to _where are you now?_ to _wait, Andrew, wait, please_ to a dial tone, courtesy of Andrew’s thumb on the _end call_ button.)  


* * *

  
In the morning, Dan said, “Arrangements for our move to Germany are being progressed.”

Matt asked, “How long do we have left state-side?”

Kevin said, “Too long.”

Allison pointed out, “We’re going to have to update everyone’s wardrobes.”

Renee mused, “I heard good fashion’s cheaper there.”

Dan muttered, “Not that money’s the issue.

Neil contributed nothing.

Andrew offered their beginning and a secure point of reference. Added to the intel they sent from their successful mission, the higher ups approved.

(Whoever they were; no one knew; _of course_ no one knew; they hadn’t steered the group wrong yet; of course, it was a matter of time.)

Plans were made, a schedule drafted. Time ticked by.  


* * *

  
In the midst of a rebellion, one would think every day would be non-stop.

The problem was: _it wasn’t._

There were plans to be submitted and arrangements in housing to be made. There were munitions to stockpile and coordination to be done. There was a safety net to be strung in case of a fall, though the general opinion in the house was that the safety net meant absolutely nothing.

There was Matt offering a ride to and from the grocery store, and - somehow - only Neil going.

(He hadn’t _moved on_ from the lie-by-omission Matt had been living in Kid Valley so much as accepted that there wasn’t anything to do to change that it had happened. In any case, it didn’t change the fact Matt was genuinely an easy person to get along with.)

(As the person dating Dan Wilds, ambitious go-getter, he had to be easy to get along with.)

(A comment or two was made along the lines of _you’re easy to get on with, too, Neil_ , with the implication that he had to be to get along with Andrew and Kevin, but Neil wrote it off as the opinion of someone who didn’t understand being an uncompromising bastard was just about the only way the three of them fit together.)

On the trip, Matt absently commented on how close they all were. It addressed the elephant in the room without barbing the intent. Neil pointed out that from where he stood, Allison and Renee were the odd ducks.

“Really?”

“Really.” A pause. Neil stole a quick glance to Matt. “Were you never part of the laboratories?”

Matt shook his head. “I found out about all _this_ ,” with an expansive and nonetheless descriptive way of his hand, “only after I’d met Dan. A long time after that, too; she’d asked me to move with her across state-lines twice before she confessed she wasn’t actually working for a intranational Exy program.”

Unable to keep from sounding doubtful, Neil asked, “You didn’t figure it out?”

“What, that my girlfriend who really liked Exy was _actually_ a super-secret freedom fighter?”

Neil grimaced. “Fair.”

Open and unabashed, Matt laughed. “Yeah. It took some getting used to.”

“So you joined to stay with her.”

“Oh, no. I joined because they’re a pack of assholes. Once she started pointing out how many pies they had fingers stuck in, I couldn’t stop seeing it. Now, well.” A shrug. “Here I am.”

He was remarkably blase about it. 

But then, Neil realized, if they thought too much about it -- if they stopped spending their down-time in equal parts fun and work -- they risked becoming exactly what they despised.

Having Renee Walker around helped keep the sense of peace, for sure. 

At least it did for the other three. The only reason Neil had the foggiest idea of what she did was because she’d somehow roped Andrew into joining her for low key patrols and daily maintenance, and even if they were now parting for up to an hour at a time, what one of them knew, all of them knew.

Kevin _had_ been part of their group, too, but after all his critiquing of the raid despite its success and his general discomfort with Dan’s management skills, he’d been let loose into more internal structuring than their overall safety. It was better that way; defense was inoffensive. Offense was asking for trouble.

“Does he ever stop bitching?” Dan asked Neil in an aside. She’d shoved paperwork at Kevin just to get him to shut up. Sadly, it worked.

“You learn to tune out what parts are just him venting,” Neil offered in explanation. Then, “That includes most of it.”

At _that_ , Dan laughed. Neil couldn’t help smiling back at her.

(In truth: Kevin seemed to be heading toward a breakdown or a realization or, probably, both. It would undoubtedly be rough, whenever it hit. Neil just wished he’d get it over with.)

The changes were gradual. Maybe. They felt too fast to Neil, every _good morning_ from Renee a surprise and every friendly pat on the shoulder from Matt too pointed. But it didn’t do to jump or complain - that would only draw more attention - and, anyway, the two he understood best weren’t ever gone for long. They weren’t even gone from pent-up energy, like Neil’s runs had been after they’d left Evermore; they parted to attend typical, daily matters.

And on top of it all: they received news of their mission’s results and the destabilization of raven operations along the west coast. They were but one point in a great web, and it was, by all accounts they received, _working._

(Somehow, somehow: his father did not appear at their doorstep.)

(Somehow, somehow: neither did Tetsuji.)  


* * *

  
Two weeks and one official outing with all members of the unit involved (Matt had invited Neil, and Neil hadn’t turned him down; Andrew and Kevin, thus, had no choice but to attend) later, word came that Germany was open for their taking.

They’d remain as their own unit, but they’d be joining the current oversea operation. They were set to travel in two groups that didn’t entirely match the combination the ravens knew: Andrew, Neil and Dan in one, Allison, Matt, Renee and Kevin in the other. 

Dan sighed to Neil, “Thank God. You’re the sane one.”

He didn’t have a reply for that. It simply wasn’t true, and rankled him, besides. 

He _understood_ what she meant, and he supposed he did get along with the others well enough, especially in comparison to Andrew and Kevin, but that didn’t mean it sat well with him.

There wasn’t the time to reply to it, either: Kevin’s long-in-coming breakdown arrived and took a form neither he nor Andrew fully expected.

For one, it involved Kevin disappearing for three hours.

For two, he could not be tracked. He would not be found. No one had seen him leave in the early evening, and no one knew where he’d gone.

He’d left his phone on his bed. It buzzed and skittered across the surface onto the floor before. Andrew, black phone to his ear, found it. 

“Has he taken a page out of your hypocritical book? Or maybe the twig he’d been passing as his spine finally broke.” Andrew whispered into Neil’s ear, deadly still in the manner of a coiled snake before a fanged strike. “I’ll gut him when he returns.”

Neil, untouched but shadowed by a hateful ( _worried_ , even if he’d never admit it) creature in the shape of Andrew Minyard, “No, you won’t.”

“Watch me,” Andrew murmured.

Luckily for Kevin, that was more threat than promise.

It was all he’d say, which left Neil to waving off the other’s surprised offers to help track him down. Renee, perhaps knowing the look in Andrew’s eyes, kept quiet, and even pulled Allison back from asking too much. For the best, really: Andrew looked ready to gut one of _them_ if they so much as reached for him or Neil.

Taking off an hour after Kevin’s disappearance, Andrew followed his nose out of their house, but the trail ran cold outside a gas station. 

“He doesn’t want to be found,” Neil muttered once they’d retreated to the gas station’s unpopulated alleyway, Andrew leading him to a bad-smelling, garbage-ridden, firmly out-of-the-way corner. “Of course he’d know how to shake you off.”

“Kevin Day,” hazel boring into blue, Andrew’s arms bracketing Neil against the wall, hiding from the world if not for those scant inches of height, “fears being alone more than anything else.”

The alley-way stunk. The day had been long before this moment, the others scrambling to pack and get rid of the mundane while hiding the extraordinary weaponry. To top it off, Andrew’s barely restrained tension clashed with Neil’s barely restrained temper. 

So, no, he didn’t sound charitable when he snapped: “You kept telling him about the importance of making his own decisions. You can’t be pissy that he’s finally taken your advice just because it doesn’t conform to your strict rules, too.”

Andrew bared his teeth, unfriendly and disquieted.

Neil flattened himself against the grubby brick wall, crossed his arms, tilted his chin up, and glared. 

They squared off like that in the darkened corner of a gas station, neither giving ground.

“The rules are there for a reason.” Barely audible, Andrew nonetheless did not lean closer. “He’s picked an awful time to find his sense of independence.”

He really, really had. The only way Neil wasn’t embracing his own anger was because a pissed off Andrew was a more immediate threat, but that didn’t mean the anger wasn’t there.

Because there wasn’t anything to be done beyond upping the chance of Andrew strangling a stranger, Neil half-declared, half-asked:

“He’ll come back.” _I hope._ “Let’s go home.”

Andrew’s eyebrow crawled up in skepticism at Neil’s word choice.

But, reluctantly, his face shuttering into a particular cold mask that Neil recognized as his brand of fury: he did.  


* * *

  
At the end of three hours, Kevin returned.

He didn’t stink of alcohol, which was a shock. He had a bandage over his cheek, which wasn’t a shock. Except then Allison called through the house, “Hey, midgets! Tall, dark and moronic is back!” and Andrew stalked to the living room with Neil hot on his heels, but before either could reach him, Kevin peeled back the bandage to reveal a livid-pink, brand new tattoo.

Dan and Allison, arranged as they were on the couch, exchanged uncertain glances. They’d caught the numeral tattoo all of once, which had been during the raid. In any case, they weren’t the targets. 

One target, Andrew, didn’t let his step falter; he moved into Kevin’s space, hand snapping out to snag his chin and tilt his head to the side. Behind him, left to stand at the door, Neil watched. He gave Dan a shrug at her questioning look, but then put the other two firmly out of his mind.

After what seemed like an age and a half of scrutiny, he asked, vaguely derisive: “A chess piece?”

“That’s what they want us to play. As if this was a game.” “I won’t be a pawn. I’ll be the deadliest piece on the board.”

The grip on his chin eased. Kevin didn’t wince nor grimace nor look away. He met Andrew’s eyes and, when at last released, straightened. 

Andrew, still standing too close for Neil’s comfort on Kevin’s chances to not gain a new hole for running off for a new tattoo, considered him.

In the end: he smiled, thin and fleeting. 

“Hey. Boss.” Without a glance to Dan, though the confused attention she afforded him showed she knew who he meant. “We’re ready.”  


* * *

  
They were ready, but the plane tickets weren’t.

Since the organization took too long, Neil scrounged up what he recalled from his childhood and paved a faster trail (as the papers the resistance provided were professional, and the stop-over in England was _off_ the table until further notice, it wasn’t too difficult). To his surprise, the other four were adamant in not letting them run off on their own, and not just over concern for the mission. 

So, they all went a bit off the grid. Dan darkly prophesied that it wouldn’t pay off, but Renee had faith. 

Between her quiet words and Neil’s quiet determination, the other three took a chance.  


* * *

  
“Is your ghost ever going to visit, or is he just going to keep leaving you distressing phone calls?”

Slipping his phone back into his pocket, hand running through already anxiously-fluffed hair with a gusty exhale, Nicky gave an honest reply: “No idea.”

Mouth thinning, Erik stood the kitchen’s silence for a few seconds more. Then he decided he’d had enough, as he jerked his chin back toward the dining room and pointedly hefted a plate of kus kus and curry. They had a dinner guest; they couldn’t leave him out there forever, especially without an on-going call to be distracted with. Pulling himself back together (loosely: it was only the _fourth_ distressing phone call, but it’d been weeks since the third) Nicky mustered up a grin and followed. 

“To be fair,” as he swapped from German to English, because as much as he loved German he sometimes missed English, “I doubt he’s in Germany.”

“It’d be nice of him to come out of the shadows. Did you ever even meet him face to face?”

“Not really…”

Eyes narrowed. A chin tilted up, jaw set, the phone he had been idly messing with forgotten.

“Andrew’s still calling you?”

Erik passed the plate to him. He barely acknowledged it, nodding thanks from reflex alone.

“Uh, yeah.” Another restless scratch on the back of his neck, Nicky’s eyes a mix of worried and - if he were honest with himself - stressed. Erik and he had done their best to play it off lightly, but the calls were increasingly worrisome. For one, they rarely moved past introductions before Andrew hung up; for two, the terse silence that began each call was the equivalent of pressing hot coals to the ends of Nicky’s nerves. 

Erik thought he should stop picking up and encouraging him, that the behaviour was creepy at best and stalkerish at worst and in both cases fully deserving of a phone call to the authorities, but Andrew hadn’t _really_ done anything.

Him not saying anything _was_ the problem.

Well, part of the problem.

The other problem was, as Aaron accurately put it, his gaze hardened: “He shouldn’t be alive.”

That was what he’d said all those weeks ago, when he’d visited the day day after Andrew’s third call and Nicky finally believed what he was hearing enough to tell him. Andrew and he had worked together for the pharmaceutical branch of Evermore. One mislabeled chemical and negligent lab assistant had proven fatal; as it had been on the same day Aaron had flown out for Frankfurt, Germany, he hadn’t been able to attend the wake or funeral, but Tilda, his mother, had attended, and assured him at length of its respectability. 

Nicky privately thought not letting a brother fly back for the funeral was outright awful on the company’s part, but Aaron hadn’t acted like it was unexpected. It wasn’t that the matter didn’t affect him: it obviously did, as proven with how touchy Aaron became the moment Andrew Minyard was brought up.

But, as Nicky had thought before and thought now:

“Who would call just to pretend to be my dead cousin?”

Aaron’s eyes dropped to his plate. After a terse moment, he shrugged, putting an end to the conversation with body language alone.

Whatever chance at a nice evening they’d had was, Nicky despaired, spoiled. Mentions of his late brother had that effect on Aaron. Occasionally, it almost seemed like he was on the cusp of saying something, or maybe making a demand from Nicky. That he’d never once asked to hear a call was both surprising and not. As far as he could glean, the two hadn’t gotten along, but it was _family._

If someone was pretending, the calls were cruel.

If it was Andrew, it made no sense. _It_ , in this case, being everything.

Either way, they never failed to give him chills.

Under the table, Erik gripped his knee, mouth stretched into a grim smile. Nicky tried for one of his own, surprised to find he’d lost the one he’d had, and probably, maybe, managed half of it. Across the table, Aaron dug his spoon into the curry, eyes down.

Then: the doorbell rang.

Nicky smashed his knee on the table, he jumped so badly. Given how Aaron hunched, he wasn’t the only one startled.

After, Nicky let out a shaky laugh, amused at how much he’d managed to scare himself.

“Are we expecting anyone?” Erik asked the room, already knowing the answer before he got up to see who it was. Nicky craned his neck to catch a look, but the entrance was around a corner. 

A silence stretched between the cousins. It grew to encompass the house, as Erik presumably looked through the peephole to find someone he needed to debate on letting in. Right before curiousity kicked Nicky out of his seat to see what was the hold-up, Erik reappeared at the dining room’s entrance, his expression concerned in a way Nicky hadn’t seen since he’d told his dad-- since, well, a while.

In the convincing voice of someone trying hard to keep it together, he said, “Nicky? I think it’s for you.”

Suspicious, Aaron tracked Nicky’s scramble from the table to the door. He didn’t follow. 

Nicky didn’t give himself time to imagine what was running through his cousin’s mind. He also peeked through the peephole, felt the world turn side-ways, and opened the door to confirm what he saw with his own two eyes. 

Two men stood on his doorstep. They were both far below Germany’s standard in height, though one was slightly taller in the same way one was slightly wider. One was effortlessly attractive, with curly, auburn hair and piercing blue eyes; the other looked like an Aaron Minyard that had decided to become a professional rugby player.

Clinging to the door was the only way Nicky didn’t fall back right then and there.

“Hello,” the cute one said, his German without accent. Despite this, Nicky couldn’t look away from what he swore were Aaron’s eyes. “May we come in? We won’t be long.” 

That seemed patently absurd. There was no way anything involving Aaron’s twin coming back to life _wouldn’t_ take long.

Feeling far away, Nicky managed, “Are you Andrew? The one who’s been leaving the ”

Without breaking eye contact, he nodded.

Against his better judgment, Nicky stepped back to let them in.

He noticed, as they passed, the truck parked by their mailbox; another man, black-haired and black-eyed and with a black tattoo smudged under his eye, looked back. Nicky couldn’t make out his expression too well, but he thought he looked tense as a spring, and more than a little worn. There was, Nicky thought, something on his hands: dark ink, maybe, or soot. It looked out of place on the otherwise stiffly poised figure, like only under most extreme duress would the man not have taken time to wash it off.

Aaron’s work kept him late more often than not, and changed the schedule on him regularly. More than a few dinners and outings had to be postponed because he couldn’t get time off. Nicky had once joked that Aaron lived at work, which had garnered a sharp enough glance that the humor of the moment had transformed into a kernel of discomfort.

Though he’d been in Germany for two years, Nicky had yet to really understand what it was Aaron did. He spoke of pharmaceutical work for an internationally acclaimed company (which was indeed internationally acclaimed and known online for its strident standards and high payout) alongside university classes, which would of course take up as many hours as there were in the day, but Nicky wasn’t stupid: no pharmacist looked as caged as Aaron did even on his nights off. It was almost like the company owned him.

Tonight, Nicky hadn’t been sure Aaron would make it to their planned dinner. But he had, two hours late and in the dark.

Wood scraped against wood as Aaron stood, his chair threatening to tip over from the abrupt movement. Andrew (and it had to be Andrew, the resemblance was too striking even in the weight difference) stopped at the dining room’s entrance; his friend stopped one step later.

Aaron looked desperately like he wanted to say something other than _you can’t be here. You’re dead._

Nicky didn’t blame him when nothing else came to mind. Like a scratched record, he was stuck on the same thing.

As only the dead could break their own silence, Andrew was the first to speak. 

Light and heavy, damning and final, he told Aaron: “You won’t have work tomorrow.” 

Aaron frowned, opened his mouth, shut it, 

“Sorry for the short notice,” the friend added, his gaze, at least, moving between all of them, “but you’re going to want to leave the country for a bit.”

“What?” This time, from Erik. He looked the most stable out of all of them -- well, out of Nicky and Aaron, anyway (and Andrew, maybe, but Nicky couldn’t tell, he really couldn’t, he looked so different but so similar to his twin).

He had the grace to look apologetic, at least. But only a little, like he knew he was supposed to look that way and so molded his expression into it.

(Maybe at another time he was a good liar, but the situation demanded truth that was - apparently, from where Nicky stood - long in coming.)

“Trust me,” the red-head said. “You’re going to want to.”

Andrew added, with an amusement that wasn’t the least bit funny, “We have your plane tickets.”

“Where to?” Aaron asked, at the exact time as Nicky gasped, “We can’t just _leave_ ,” and Erik demanded, “Who even _are_ you?”

Focused as he was on his twin, Andrew answered him. On his face was a faint smile, a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it sense of relief that nonetheless spoke to a deeper gratitude, his face relaxing on Aaron’s confidence in him. It suited him about as well as sloppiness had suited the man in the car, which was to say: Nicky felt positive he imagined it.

“Canada. Temporarily.”

“And then?”

“For us, America. Though,” with a short, fly-away gesture, “you’re invited.”

Eyes narrowed, body language reluctant, Aaron admitted, “You look a lot better.”

(This was news to Nicky. By Aaron’s reaction, he had to wonder: had he ever even believed his brother to be dead? And given the blankness on Andrew’s face, what had worse looked like?)

Appraising as Aaron, the red-head’s looked to Andrew. He, however, had eyes only for his twin.

In his reply, Nicky couldn’t have imagined the certainty:

“As I’ve recently discovered, it can be better.”


	4. THE ENDING

The world was ending.

That was the only way to describe how Jean Moreau felt, locked as he was in Evermore Laboratories’ deepest bunker while the walls shook and lighting flickered.

The world was ending. It had to be ending. He’d thought it had ended with a _snap!_ of a infallible man’s neck five-and-some years previous, but that had turned out to be a beginning. Yes, it was true: an ending could very well be a beginning, just as a beginning could very well grow from an ending, but there was no beginning if the world ended.

“Jean,” one of three comrades said, tense, “are communications up?”

“Negative.”

He swore. Not Jean, but his comrade.

It was a bit startling. He rarely swore. Not out of a personal code. Rather, because he rarely was in a mood bad enough to see the need.

The last transmission had been an order to secure their most prized assets: the last two sentinels on official record, and potentially the last two sentinels to ever again be on official record, as the procedure’s instructions had been wiped from the network in Evermore’s last server crash. Physical copies and an isolated backup existed, but researchers found the papers had been burned and the laptop stolen only _after_ the digital copies had been purged.

It was one failure on a long list of recent failures, but it smarted the worst. 

On the record, the other sentinels had died in action. Off the record, what began as a number of AWOL personnel amongst the casualties transformed strictly into casualties, the general consensus was what everyone knew but no one wanted to say: the resistance, whatever they were and wherever they had come from, had grown strong enough to poach the golden eggs right from the nest.

The Sentinel Project had been the Moriyama’s pride and joy. Now, all that was left of it huddled in a bunker, condemned to waiting out a raid that the base itself wasn’t expected to survive.

“We should be out there,” Alvarez hissed. “This is stupid. We’re the best operatives on the base.”

“We’re too expensive to replace,” Laila replied, sensible despite the white-knuckled grip she had on her stun baton. She’d had to pilfer it from the downed body of a security guard; the raid had seriously taken them off-guard. “They’ll send a helicopter once it’s over to retrieve us.”

Alvarez didn’t have to say it, but she did: “ _If_ they retrieve us.”

“We just left everyone out there to die on our behalf,” Jeremy responded, voice even tenser. “They can’t make their sacrifices worth nothing.”

They could, and they would. This time, no one pointed out the obvious.

Jean wasn’t even supposed to be in the bunker. He was supposed to be one of those giving their life to make sure the sentinels and companion weren’t found. But Jeremy had refused to leave him behind, pointing out he was the best with repairing tech, a skill they’d most likely need to utilize.

In truth, he was scarcely better than Alvarez. In truth, he’d long lost the ability to tell Jeremy Knox no.

If it hadn’t been for him, Riko’s ending wouldn’t have been Jean’s beginning. That was simple, objective fact.

Another explosion went off, another piece of their once peaceful home laid to waste. None of them jumped, though Jeremy echoed Alvarez’s dark, terse curse.

Strangely, Jean couldn’t join their worry. He’d long passed the point of fearing his death. There was nothing in him that would allow for Jeremy, Laila or Alvarez to die, but he couldn’t waste energy fretting over what came after his story’s end.

If the world _wasn’t_ ending, how was Evermore falling?

By the fourteenth minute of listening to bombing and the radio’s crackling static, Jeremy decided they needed to involve themselves. Surely they could help _someone._ If they were good enough to die for, they should be good enough to turn the tides.

He out-ranked everyone in the room, but not the one who had given them the order to remain. Though Laila and Alvarez reminded him of that, he wouldn’t be convinced.

Jean, because Jeremy encouraged him to give his opinion despite everything (even five years later) screaming at him not to contradict his superior, reminded him that if they left, there was little chance Jean would be allowed to come back.

That, finally, convinced him to stay. 

Using Jeremy’s own disobediance against him did not make Jean feel better. He would have preferred a swifter death. He would prefer, above all, their collective survival.

What he preferred had been happening in higher frequencies, but reaching an ideal like _that_ was a thing of dreams. Though he lived, he rarely dreamed.  


* * *

  
The night was long.  


* * *

  
The day to follow was long. They had no orders to leave, so they didn’t.

Rations of food and water would tide them over for three weeks. 

The main generator went out in the last minutes of the bombing. The backup kicked in, circulated air thinning and the overhead light dimming the remainder of their world into a pale, cement grey copy.

The radio cleared twenty hours after the raid supposedly ended. They took turns talking into it, but they received no word. It was as if they’d been forgotten.

Jean had wished to be forgotten. As the days stretched into uncertainty -- as Laila and Jeremy tried the door, cracking it open only to discover the hallway leading to it caved in, their room serving its purpose in keeping them alive and nothing else -- as they distracted themselves with the small pack of cards Alvarez carried in her jacket, they continued with the radio and did their best to keep the depleting rations out of sight.  


* * *

  
They had a two weeks’ worth or rations left.

Laila and Jeremy debated on attempting to tunnel out. Their first attempt went smoothly. Their second resulted in the worst hour of Jean’s too long life before or after the ending that had turned into his beginning.

They turned to the radio with a touch more desperation, though none of them said it aloud.  


* * *

  
The world was, as far as Jean could tell, gone.  


* * *

  
They had a week’s worth left.  


* * *

  
In the room’s soft light, the radio crackled to life.

_Hello? Hello? Evermore, do you copy? Hello? Is anyone listening?_

_\-- Yes! Yes, yes, we’re alive, we copy._

_Who is this?_

_Sentinel Knox, reporting._

_Who’s with you?_

_Captain Alvarez and Sentinel Laila, and First Lieutenant Moreau._

_Where?_

_The bunker. We’re trapped, the hall’s caved in._

_Hang tight, Knox. Help’s on the way. In the meantime, I need you to keep talking. Can you do that?_

He sobbed a laugh. Behind him, Jean’s hand tightened on his shoulder; beside them, Alvarez just about jumped into Laila’s arms with a whoop.

Sentinel Knox replied, _Yes. Yes, gods, yes, I can do that._  


* * *

  
It took a full day for them to reach the bunker, but communications remained up and their rations held out.

The sun was too bright, the black and red helicopter they brought too loud. Jeremy had to be carried, his muscles seized up and eyes glassy. Probably, the sky was too much for him. It didn’t matter: the play of sunlight on his blond hair was just about the most beautiful thing Jean had seen. 

They were _out._ The soldiers that collected them wore pressed black uniforms, as ordered and prepared as expected of the Moriyama family’s military force.

From the commanding officer, Laila was given a commendation for her calm, while Alvarez was promised a promotion for her reflexes and sense in remaining with her partner. A surprised comment was made about Jean’s unlikely survival, another made about the rations they would have had left with three instead of four.

As expected of him, Jean agreed with her assessment. It was, factually, true.

Jeremy was loaded into the helicopter, strapped in without regard for his near-comatose state. They were permitted to follow along with three other soldiers, the officer standing back and giving them all a pleased, satisfied smile. It was rare from a superior. It marked a job well done. As Jean knew well, surviving, sometimes, was the toughest job to be done.

She said she’d meet them at the Chicago base, and then waved the pilot that sat in his own protected cockpit on. They rose to the air without delay, the bulky machine roaring forward through the sky.

Jean couldn’t believe it.

Jeremy came back to himself in fits and starts, his eyelids fluttered open and squeezed shut, mouth turned down in a grimace, hands pressed tightly over the headset. Eventually his gaze cleared, though Jean couldn’t imagine coming to in a noisy helicopter helped his inevitable headache. Jeremy caught his eye, managed a lopsided smile that grew on spotting Laila and Alvarez, whole and hale. It finished its spreading as he took in the sky, his shoulders relaxing and mouth dropped open in a relieved, gusty laugh.

The soldier sitting opposite Jeremy gave him a thumbs up and matching smile. 

( _Unprofessional_ , Jean immediately thought.)

The soldier next to that one rolled her eyes, but couldn’t fight a smile.

(Jean frowned.)

The soldier next to her leaned forward, one elbow set to her knee, fingers pressing her mic closer to her mouth. 

“Welcome back, Sentinel Knox. Tell me, how much do you three want to go to Chicago?”

Jean stared.

Slowly, Jeremy replied, “Truthfully, ma’am, all I’m thinking about is a warm bath and food that doesn’t taste like cardboard.”

It was a careful non-answer.

“We can give you that,” the woman replied. “We just ask you take it in South Carolina, not Chicago.”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand, ma’am.”

_The world had ended._

“This isn’t on the official network. This is just between us.” Her lips quirked up and then smoothed out, a there-and-gone show of personality that no Evermore foot soldier would dare. “And between us, we’re sorry it took so long to evacuate you; we had to rely on their search party to confirm your whereabouts. That doesn’t make up for leaving you trapped, but maybe the offer of a long-term vacation will help take off the edge.”

“It might,” Laila said, voice light. She glanced toward the cockpit, her eyes narrowed. She was, Jean thought, taking a deep breath, perhaps wondering if the pilot was in on this as well.

“The offer’s extended to all of you. Arrangements have already been made if you’d like to take them.”

Silence.

It was a trick.

Riko had pulled that trick on him before. Only then it hadn’t been a trick, but training: offer something that looked like an ideal, then reveal the consequences of being distracted by the good with a punishment far worse than any offered bad option.

But this was a trick. Their training was done. Evermore was done.

It would have been a trick, if only it didn’t come after the ending.

Jeremy looked to him and found, Jean hoped, nothing. He looked on to Laila and Alvarez, both of whom appeared as still as Jean.

There was a reason Jeremy out-ranked them: he was the best at making calls the others didn’t want to. He was the best at deciding. He was the most in touch with his conscience, however it was that he managed it.

Jean saw, but did not believe, his nod of acceptance.

The woman’s smile grew, edged though it was in something like sympathy.

“Fantastic. Neil, take us to Palmetto.”

Without thinking (a rarity), Jean twisted in his seat to look toward the cockpit’s narrow opening. The pilot didn’t glance back, but the tufts of auburn from under his helmet were suddenly extremely, awfully, terribly familiar. Laila, at his side, looked satisfied with what she'd smelled because, of course, it was someone she recognized.

“This time _without_ running us into a cloud,” the soldier who had given a thumbs up joked. Or. Jean thought it was supposed to be a joke. It sounded like one.

Through the window, Neil gave the soldier a one-fingered salute.

Across the way, the woman leaned back, all comfort and ease. It felt surreal. It was surreal. Behind him was the accomplice to his life’s beginning; around him was, quite possibly, the reason for his world’s ending.

She said, “It’ll be a while, but that’s alright. We’ve a lot to discuss.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> join me on [tumblr](http://unkingly.tumblr.com) for many tfc-related feelings. have feelings of your own? I'm always down for talking smack about foxes, animal or fictional.
> 
> and thanks again for reading to the end! writing this was a roller coaster, but I'm glad I had the opportunity to contribute to the kandreil (and weird faux military aus??) side of the fandom. rest assured, I'm nowhere near done messing around with them or their slightly more functional & adjusted teammates. 
> 
> finally, most importantly: have a good day!


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